The fine arts department of De Soto High School presented its band and choir holiday concert on Jan. 7 despite a long break from rehearsals. 

The previously scheduled concert was to be held before winter break; however, due to inclement weather, the concert had to be rescheduled to after winter break. This meant that both the band and choir of De Soto performed after three weeks without rehearsals. 

Students had only one class period before the concert once they came back from break. 

“The concert went well considering what was happening. The time off was not a good situation just because of having to reschedule it after break. We did not have time to adequately prepare,” band director Matt Bradford said.

Yet despite the circumstances, Bradford believed the students still performed well.

“I thought that the students did very well. Now it wasn’t perfect, but considering the constraints that we had, I thought it actually went very well,” Bradford said.

Senior Abby Martin also believed the concert went well.

“I feel the concert went very well considering the later rescheduled date. I feel the next concert will go much smoother and the bands will sound even better, although they did great considering the circumstances,” Martin said.

In different circumstances, the concert would have been cancelled and not rescheduled. However, since band and choir are travelling to Disney World over spring break of 2020, they needed to have a performance to record in order to be accepted to perform at Disney World. 

“They’re [Disney] all family-oriented and very fun, but they everything they do is top-notch. They want to know everything that you are doing for your performance— what you’re wearing, whose performing, the numbers performing. [They require] all that to make sure that they don’t put a group that’s not appropriate for their stage on stage,” Bradford said. “So, we have to send a video of our groups performing, and we have to be accepted into the program before we can actually be scheduled.”

The band and choir will not only visit Disney World but will perform there.

“The upcoming Disney trip is going to be very exciting since the bands and choirs have an opportunity to perform. We will be performing Disney music to match our trip theme, much like what we did on the [Washington] D.C. trip,” Martin said.

The fine arts department looks forward to their next concert in February and their spring break trip following shortly thereafter in March.