It’s that time of year again, Homecoming! And you all know what that means, a homecoming football game in place! This year, Coppell took on Hebron at Buddy Echols Field on 9/27. Aside from the dazzling performance of the Coppell Cowboys, we mustn’t forget the performances put on by the Coppell Choirs as well. The large group, made of choirs from Coppell High School, Coppell Middle School East, West, and North, performed the national anthem before the game started.
I spoke with the Coppell Middle School North choir director, Ms. Sara Longoria, about what it was like to prepare her students for today:
“So throughout the past week, we’ve been going through the national anthem in class. I put the lyrics up on the screen because many kids don’t know it. So we’ve been going through it, they can get through the melody but not all the words. So we’ve been talking about the words, and once we got the words down, we got through the breathing. The national anthem is a really hard song to sing. So we had to prepare breathing patterns and make sure that everyone was taking breaths at the same time.” (Sara Longoria – CMSN Choir Director)
Ms. Longoria did not do this by herself though, she also received help from Ms. Bona Coogle, who is one of the Coppell High School choir directors, to teach her students:
“Mrs. Coogle came over to North this week and she led the kids to the National Anthem so they would know what to expect tonight. And now we’re here.” (Sara Longoria – CMSN Choir Director)
I asked Ms. Longoria if this was her first doing leading a performance like this:
“This is my third time doing this, but I believe they’ve been doing this for the past few years with all three middle schools and the high school at the homecoming game” (Sara Longoria – CMSN Choir Director)
We had an idea of how this performance could help short-term and long-term students. Longoria clarified:
“I think this can help students in the short term by showing them just how powerful a group of people singing can be for all of these sixth graders. This is some of their first months in choir and I think having them sing in a group that’s way bigger than what they’re used to shows them the power of voices coming together and singing. So I’m excited about that. And then long term I think it shows them what different harmonies can sound like with the national anthem and what choir can look like once you get to high school.” (Sara Longoria – CMSN Choir Director)
She also plans on doing this again in the years to come, we look forward to future performances!
