The theme of the Tiger Mania concert this year was Broadway in Bluejeans.
The Hastings High School Choir Department’s annual Tiger Mania concert was held Monday, October, 10 in the HHS auditorium.
Tiger Mania, a non-traditional choir concert, includes choreography, lights, and students singing pop and broadway music instead of the more common choral-type music typically sang at choir concerts. This year will be Christian Yost’s third year as the Hastings High choir director.
“It’s a fun dynamic. There’s a lot of moving, so it’s not just one choir sings and then the next choir,” Yost said.
The choir department has three concerts each school year: a fall concert, a holiday concert in the winter, and a spring concert. The choir department has had the Tiger Mania concert in the spring for the past two years, but it was moved from the spring to the fall for the first time this year.
“With the concert being at the beginning of the year we use the concert to build confidence and performance rather than in previous years with it being at the end of the year it’s more of a display of all the confidence and skills we have gained throughout the year,” Yost said.
There are five different choir classes offered at the high school, including two girls only choirs, one male only choir, and two mixed choirs. Each choir performed two songs in the concert. Show choir, one of the mixed choirs, is new as a class this year and was previously offered as an extracurricular activity outside of school.
“This year they added Show Choir instead of Chamber Choir, and each one has different varying abilities,” junior Jake Braun said.
Braun has been part of three Tiger Mania concerts throughout his time at the high school, and each one featured a different combination of music genres. Braun would say that the concert went well this year.
“I would say there was a lot more energy this year, just because we really enjoyed our music this year,” Braun said.
In order to prepare for the concert, the choir department learned an hour of music as well as choreography for each of their songs.
“Overall, it went well, though it was a slower process than previous years because it was our first concert, so we had to teach classroom expectations as well as music and literature,” Yost said.
Each choir class also has to learn staging for the concert. The choir department only rehearses the concert together as a department one time before the actual concert, so each class goes through the concert during individual class time to learn their placements for the concert. This is the third year the choir department has had the Tiger Mania concert. The past two years, the department had one scheduled department-wide rehearsal during the week of the concert and one rehearsal the day of the concert, but the department was able to only have one department-wide rehearsal on the day of the concert this year.
“The first year we did [the run-through of the concert] it was kind of hectic, but as we do it more years the students get used to it and the transitions are smoother, so it was pretty smooth this year,” the accompanist for the choir department, Mindee Rowan, said.
Another thing that makes the Tiger Mania concert different from regular choir concerts, is that it has a different theme each year. Along with that, the attire for Tiger Mania is a t-shirt with the concert theme on it, jeans, and neutral tennis shoes, instead of the black formal clothing and choir robes the department wears for the two other concerts throughout the year. The theme of the concert this year was Broadway in Bluejeans, so all of the songs performed in the concert were musical theater songs from various musicals. Braun liked the Tiger Mania theme this year since it meant performing musical theater songs.
“This one was my favorite, I really enjoyed the music we sang,” Braun said. “Musicals are one of the best ways for me to express myself and just have a great time.”
