The Palo Alto High School Choirs perform their spring concert, “Fight of the Centuries,” on Friday night at the Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto.
All of the choirs (Concert Choir, Beginning Choir, Madrigals and the Spectrum Singers) will be performing at the concert, which features classical music and centers around the works of Bach and Mozart. According to Paly choir teacher Michael Najar, the choirs will perform Bach’s Cantatas and Mozart’s “Vesperae solennes de confessore.”
“Bach and Mozart are the two greatest composers that one would think of when they would think of classical music,” Najar said. “I’m really excited about pitting these two great composers against each other.”
The Paly Choirs will not be the only ones participating in the concert, according to Najar.
“We’re doing it with a hired orchestra,” Najar said. “Some soloists from Stanford are going to join our own soloists from Paly Choir, so it’s a really remarkable concert.”
Junior Clare Kemmerer, a member of Paly choir who will be singing at the concert, says that the choirs have been working to get ready for the concert.
“I think that by the time we perform on Friday, we will be even better,” Kemmerer said. “It has been an educational experience to sing really big classical pieces. We’ve definitely been challenged by it.”
Kemmerer also says the concert is made unique by the challenging and extremely well-known classical music, making it more difficult to sing.
“We do classical pieces but not to the extent of Bach and Mozart,” Kemmerer said. “Bach and Mozart are up there in how hard they are to sing, because largely they are not just choral pieces. It’s a different technique of singing. We’ve never done a concert that is purely Bach and Mozart.”
Najar says that he looking forward to the upcoming concert.
“We have an outstanding choir,” Najar said. “We always challenge ourselves to do great music because we have incredible students who are really well trained.”
Tickets can be bought at the door for $10 for adults and $5 for seniors, and admission is free for students and children. The show will take place from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at the Grace Lutheran Church.