“One City, One Sound” celebrates unity with musical performances by Michigan City middle and high school students

Every December brings with it a festive spirit of unity, and Michigan City Area Schools celebrates that sense of fellowship with its “One City, One Sound” event, which invites the community to listen to Christmas songs performed by a handful of schools in the area. This free concert, on December 11 at 7 p.m. in the Michigan City High School (MCHS) gym, featured 645 students ranging from 7th–12th grade—hailing from MCHS, Krueger Middle School, and Barker Middle School—who delivered joyful vocal and instrumental performances through a variety of ensembles.

“We have a variety of different music focused on different ensembles. In the band department, we have two different jazz bands. We have an advanced band and a beginning jazz band. They’ll be playing two different Christmas tunes each. Then, we have two percussion ensembles: one’s a beginning, one’s an advanced. They’ll be doing some Christmas melodies. And then we have two concert bands back to back. One’s gonna play a song that’s more symphonic, like old symphony songs, and then the other one’s doing more of a Western spin on Christmas music,” said MCHS Director of Bands Frank Gast.

With various choirs and bands coming together for some songs and diverting into their separate schools and ensembles for others, students had the opportunity to connect with each other musically and showcase their collective talent. 

“This gives our students a chance to experience music at all levels. Our band students, who are just beginning, get to hear the high school students who have been in band for six or seven years. Our beginning choir students get to see how they’ve come from two-part singing to four to eight-part singing. It’s also fun for our students to make music with some of their siblings, who they don’t normally get to do a concert with,” said MCHS Choral Director Michelle Howisen.

Bringing students of multiple ages and abilities together to perform can be a challenge, but the band and choir teachers across Michigan City Area Schools were eager to collaborate and make the concert a successful night to remember.

“We start our planning in August, and we pick our collaboration songs for our opening piece and our ending piece, where all the bands and choirs perform together. We start working on those pieces around October with our students to make sure they are ready for the concert. We also collaborate to decide what kind of Christmas song this school is going to do. How can we fill it? Are we going more classical this year? Are we doing more of a fun Christmas this year? Are we just doing traditional Christmas songs? It’s about how each group is going to bring what their students can do to the table to make this a great concert,” Howisen said.

As a special treat, the Michigan City High School American Sign Language Club provided ASL during the concert, inviting the hearing-impaired attendees to join the festivities.

“I’m super excited because I love interpreting songs, like on Tiktok. That’s something I really love doing, and so I practice a lot, and I really have to lock in and focus. All seven songs that have words, I have been practicing and working on. I’m really excited for the Pacem Noel song,” said ASL Club member Lyndzy Gilley

While “One City, One Sound” was free to the public, attendees came together to provide non-perishable food items and monetary donations to support The Salvation Army, echoing the unity and Christmas spirit of the event. With so many hands coming together to supply the music, ASL interpretations, and Salvation Army donations, Michigan City Area Schools hope attendees leave feeling inspired and rejuvenated for the Christmas season.

“I think it’s kind of a Christmas card to the community. We tried to bring them out and give them something to listen to. They can come out, they can watch it on YouTube, and they can listen to it on the radio throughout the season. We try to share that with them, and hopefully, whether they can or cannot make it, it uplifts them a little bit with the quality of our student programming,” Gast said.