On Apr. 12, concert choir and advance women’s choir traveled to New York City to perform at

Carnegie Hall. Choir’s performance these past few years and getting gold at their festivals has allowed them the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall.

Concert choir sophomore Joshua Hall said “this shows that we are capable of exceeding the expectation.” He continued with “it got to the point where [this] is just perfect, it just shows how capable we are of doing anything.”

The expectation of the choirs was to perform well and have fun. However, by earning gold at their festivals, they have exceeded their own expectations and have been successful for the previous two years.

Jameson Staley, the choir teacher, credits the the success of the choirs to the students’ hard work. But his students believe that it is not only because of their hard work but also because of Staley that they have been able accomplish their goals.

Rene Muller, a senior in advanced women’s choir who attended Carnegie, said: “We started without having any awards [before Staley]. In the beginning, only one choir had awards and then Staley came and we started getting gold at competitions.”

The students were excited to perform at Carnegie because they had been invited to perform there in each of the past two years, but Staley did not allow them to go because he wanted more than one choir to attend from Perry.

“The fact that we have two choirs scoring [gold at competitions] as opposed to one that has been doing it consistently, means that each individual ensemble has been getting better and improving,” Staley said.

Last year, the choirs competed in Hollywood and earned gold. As a result of their ranking from that competition, they were once again invited to perform at Carnegie Hall for this year.

“I think kids’ hard work and paying attention to detail and striving to be their best musically and performing challenging music has helped them,” Staley said. “Striving to have excellence in our own concerts here has helped us [to get here].”