The performance of their lives

There were many memorable moments for members of Port Washington High School’s concert choir during a performance last week, but perhaps none more poignant than what followed a moment of absolute silence.

“We got done singing and there was this brief pause before the place erupted into applause,” choir member Jack Schwengels said. “It was an amazing feeling.”

The place Schwengels referred to was the Bradley Symphony Center in Milwaukee and the applause from the full-house crowd was for the 76 members of the Port High chorus, as well as members of the Brookfield Central and Bay Port high school choirs, who performed with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra on Feb. 26 as part of the orchestra’s “Brilliant Bernstein” Concerts for Schools show.

“I was 40 before I had the opportunity to perform with a symphony,” Port High Vocal Music Director Dennis Gephart said. “Most of these kids will never get a chance to be on stage with a symphony again, so this was an incredibly special experience for them.”

You don’t have to tell Jade Moses that.

“I never, ever thought I would be part of something like this,” the senior member of the choir, who also plays the violin and guitar, said. “It felt like we were in a movie.”

The Port high choir auditioned last year and was notified in August that it had been selected to perform with the MSO.

And in short order, choir members found out what they were in for.

“At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Gephart handed out the music and we were like, ‘What is this?’” Moses said.

The music was Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms,” a choral composition in three movements arranged from the Book of Psalms in the original Hebrew for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival at Chichester Cathedral in England.

“We sang it in Hebrew, so it was a huge deal to learn,” Gephart said.

That may be an understatement, Schwengels said.

“It was not easy at all,” he said. “We’ve done foreign language pieces before, but nothing like this. We had to learn a completely different language.”

With less than six months to learn and refine the piece, the choir worked nonstop through the first semester and into the second while also “doing all the things we normally do,” Gephart said.

“There was a lot of coming in after school, but Mr. Gephart is a great teacher,” Moses said.

There was also support from the MSO. In November, Cheryl Frazes Hill, director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, visited Port High to work with students.

“She explained the music to the kids, why it was written and what it means,” Gephart said. “It really added a whole new dimension to the process.”

Learning the music was challenging, but  that was just the beginning. Not long before the performance, the Port High chorus had to come together with the other high school choirs they would perform with in the hopes of sounding like they had sung together for months.

“You know your group and you know your sound, but you don’t know what the other groups sound like and how prepared they are, so it was difficult,” Schwengels said.

During the first of three rehearsals in Milwaukee, the Port High choir worked with the other two high school groups before all three groups rehearsed with the MSO.

Then it was showtime.

“I’ve never seen a symphony, let alone performed with one, so it was pretty amazing,” Schwengels said. “The one thing I didn’t think about until I got there was how big the space is. It’s much easier performing in a small space, which this one definitely wasn’t. But to look out and see the place was packed was really cool.”

For Gephart, the performance was a rare opportunity for him to sit with the audience and watch his students.

“It was really nice just to be able to sit down and enjoy the performance instead of being up on stage directing,” he said. “I guess mostly I just had a feeling of pride. We’re a small school but we can do big things.

“Each other school had only about 30 kids in their choirs, so when you listened to the performance, you knew it was our kids carrying the weight.”

Perhaps more than anything, the performance and the time spent preparing for it was a reminder of what music has to offer students, Gephart said.

“I think the kids had that feeling that comes from working on something really hard, then pulling off something really big,” he said. “You’re borderline exhausted but energized by knowing you’ve accomplished something significant.

“They’re really proud of what they did. Not every school can pull something like that off.”

Schwengels said he doesn’t plan to pursue music in college or professionally, but said he is thankful for the experiences, especially last week’s, that being a member of the concert choir has brought him.

“Being involved in choir has given me amazing experiences, and now getting an experience that not many high-schoolers or even adults have was very special,” he said.

Performing with the MSO has inspired Moses, who plans to pursue careers in fashion design and music.

“This was so amazing that I’m actually planning on trying out for the orchestra we performed with,” she said.