CV Choir Performs at Carnegie Hall
On March 29, 77 students from Castro Valley High School and their 16 chaperones embarked on a trip of a lifetime to New York City and an epic performance at Carnegie Hall.
Choir teacher Ms. Laryssa Sadoway said the trip was a huge success and extra special as the first major tour of the CVHS Choir Program since the pandemic.
“Students performed wonderfully and wowed our international audience in the incomparable Carnegie Hall,” Sadoway said. “Huge thanks go out to Castro Valley Music Parents’ Society, our Tour Manager Michelle Uchiyama, and our school principal Mr. Christopher Fortenberry who not only supported us throughout the school year but who traveled with us as our tour administrator.”
The Carnegie Hall performance included a three-song “Spotlight Performance,” joining a festival chorus of 250 to sing Mozart’s Coronation Mass with a professional orchestra.
“It was almost dream-like, walking out onto the large stage of this fancy, decorated hall that beautifully encapsulates any music that is played or sung within it,” Senior Rachel Raskin said. “For instance, when our choir sang a chord which then had a pause or a rest after it, you could hear the chord echoing throughout the space in a heavenly manner. I remember thinking to myself that I have only heard things like that in recordings of professional choirs, and the fact that I am a part of a choir singing in this type of space is crazy (in a good way). Singing at Carnegie Hall is an experience that I am extremely grateful to have gotten and is something that I will never forget.”
The 5-day tour included dinner at Ellen's Stardust, where the students were regaled with singing waiters in the most entertaining meal and nighttime viewing of NYC from the top of 30 Rockefeller Center. Students and chaperones were able to take in the Broadway show "Hadestown," where the star-studded cast greeted CVHS students after the performance, complete with autograph-signing and selfie-taking. The students also took a boat cruise of New York Harbor, where they danced and sang for the entire crew and a visit to the 9-11 Museum and the Museum of Natural History.
Going to these events like Carnegie Hall and meeting with other choirs to do something we all love proved how much our efforts can take us when doing something we love, and it can cause us also to build connections with many people we can see again in the future," said Senior Adreana Dones.