Guthrie Center choir students rehearsing this fall. Photo courtesy of Kelsey Moran.

The Guthrie Center High School choirs will be publicly performing for the first time this semester, to an audience watching on their phones or computers this Thursday.

In order to keep the community safe during the current pandemic, the swing and concert choirs will sing for a mini fall concert during class time at 11:15 a.m. through YouTube Live. In accordance with copyright law and under the Iowa High School Music Association’s guidance, vocal director Kelsey Moran says the public can only view the concert in real time as it won’t be saved for future viewings. The concert will last about 25 minutes with piano accompaniment from Debbie Menning. Though the music department is tentatively planning a December concert, Moran says if this experiment goes well they could do future livestream events, “Our kids have been working on some really good music and I decided, you know what, we need something to look forward to. So I have created a link and just during class time we are going to sing a couple, tunes, it’s going to be super informal, but it’ll be out there for anyone who wants to tune in and hopefully feel some warm fuzzies for a little bit.”

You can find a link to watch the concert on the ACGC Vocal Music Facebook page, and hear more from Moran during the first part of a two-part Let’s Talk Guthrie County program on air today and at raccoonvalleyradio.com.