Several Kennedy students traveled to Ames, Iowa to Iowa State University for the Opus Honor Choir Music Festival  on Thursday, Nov. 21. Many Kennedy students also traveled to Iowa State University the following day for All State Honor Choir.

Opus Honor Choir consists of many different sections for each grade. There were a total of 780 students from across Iowa in Opus Honor Choir.

“The day of Opus was pretty hectic, we left Kennedy at 5:45 a.m. with Mr. Muters to travel to Ames, when we got there, we got registered and we rehearsed for about five hours total with everyone who made it,” Mackenzie Hill, fr., said.

Hill is a part of the freshman choir, along with four other freshmen: Madeline Bagby, Kourtney Holzer, Lincoln Klopfenstein, and Gunner Haight. 720 freshmen from across Iowa tried out but only 180 were selected for Opus’ freshmen choir. Scott Muters, choir teacher and show choir director at Kennedy, directed these students.

After five hours of rehearsal they then had a concert to preform all the songs they had been rehearsing.

“We don’t do anything else for Opus throughout the year. It was over after the concert so it’s kind of just a one day thing,” Hill said.

Prior to the one-day madness of Opus, the group of freshmen from Kennedy met up and rehearsed before meeting with the whole group of Opus singers.

“We practiced with Mr. Muters about three times and we each got a cd with the piano playing our parts to the five Opus songs so we learned our songs with the cd too. We also learned songs in Kennedy Singers,” Hill said.

The auditioning process for Opus is quite extensive. All freshman rehearsed a little part of two different song during the first couple of weeks of Kennedy Singers. Storm Ziegler, Happiness director, practiced specifically with the students who wanted to be a part of Opus.

“They set aside two or three days for auditions where we sang the parts of the songs a capella (without accompaniment) into a microphone that recorded our voices,” Hill said.

Ziegler sent the recordings in and after a couple of weeks it was  announced who made it.

“My favorite thing about Opus was the songs, once we got everyone together singing their parts it sounded so pretty. It was such a fun experience and if I got a chance to do it again, I definitely would,” Hill said.