High school and middle school musicians to perform tonight

Tonight St. Joseph residents get the rare opportunity to see the St. Joseph Middle School and St. Joseph-Ogden High Schools bands and chorus perform together.

The idea for the concert came from St. Joseph Middle School Music Teacher Jeremy Dassow.

Dassow said the idea formed during his first year teaching in St. Joseph. The concert originally started with the St. Joseph Middle School and other middle schools before evolving into the middle school and high school performing together.

“It’s a great opportunity for the students to make music with different people,” he said.

Dassow said it also allows his students to hear what the high school music department is doing and get them excited about performing music at the high school level.

The concert will include three songs with the middle school and high school musicians combined and then two pieces that will be performed by just the high school musicians.

“You can expect a lot of cool music,” he said. “The middle school students are excited to make music together, get to check out the HS before they go over their next year, and they get free pizza so who wouldn’t be excited.”

Dassow said the hardest part is actually selecting what to perform at the concert because the pieces have to be playable for the middle school musicians but still challenging enough for the high school musicians.

“We try to select s variety of songs,” Dassow said.

One song will even be sung in Swahili.

The concert will be tonight at 7 p.m in the high school main gym.