On February 20th, music students from both West Morris Central and Mendham High School went on a four day trip to Nashville to both perform at and explore Tennessee’s capital. According to Mr. Stingle, a choir teacher at West Morris Central High School, students from orchestra, choir and band classes in West Morris joined up with students taking the equivalent classes at Mendham to visit the city. Practice for the trip was held around two weeks before the classes left for Nashville. Then, last Thursday, everyone met up at Mendham and left early enough to make it to the morning flight, wherefrom they made it safely to their destination. From there, students not only had the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, but also to appreciate the city’s various offerings and attractions.
According to Mr. Stingle, “we performed at the Grand Ole Opry, we performed at the Country Music Hall of Fame, and we performed at a place called RCA Studio B, where we got a recording from them of our group singing.” Clearly, the trip involved multiple performances from the West Morris School District. But there was some time allotted for more recreational activities, too. Mr. Stingle says that “we took [the students] to a place for lunch one day where they all got to do line dancing, and they loved that. They thought that was a lot of fun.”
Sophomore Lucy Mestrandrea says that her favorite part of the trip was “seeing the Nashville Symphony perform the songs from West Side Story…It changed my brain chemistry.” Additionally, junior Mikey Vespignani, when asked why he went on the trip, notes that he “wanted to have a great time with the choir… Also exploring Nashville, I thought that was really fun.”
At the end of their visit to Nashville, Mr. Stingle says, the West Morris and Mendham classes boarded a flight to New Jersey and returned on Sunday night. Overall, it appears that the trip was a huge success.
