St. Paul's Glee Club Takes First Place

Simcoe.com article written by Brad Pritchard
The glee club at St. Paul’s Catholic Elementary School in Alliston overcame all of the challenges of COVID-19 to pull off an award-winning performance.
“It was great to win, especially at this time,” said teacher John Miorin.
He said it was a bit of a logistical nightmare to record the song, due to cohorting and students being in different classes.
Since singing is not allowed to be done at the school, students had to record their parts at home and send them to Miorin, who then mixed everything together using music programs at his home recording studio.
The instrumental parts were recorded in the school, and the students recorded the video outside the school.
They started working on the song at the end of September, not long after schools reopened for in-class learning.
They had a list of Canadian artists to chose from, and he felt 'Crabbuckit' by k-os was the most upbeat of the bunch.
“I knew this group of students would be really able to jazz things up for the performance and play it up for the camera,” he said.
Musician Terra Lightfoot, who was one of the judges, noted how the kids’ attitude “really came across in their performance.” She also called the video “engaging and fun,” and “positively gleeful."
Miorin said this was not an easy feat to pull off, noting how they were up against high school kids in their category.
“It shows we were just as good as them,” he said.
He said winning the competition was definitely a high note for a difficult year.
“I spoke to a few of the parents and they said they are really happy and they think it was good for the students, especially now," he said.
For placing first, the school wins $3,000 in new musical instruments and it will also receive a plaque.
The school has entered the competition for the past three years and previously made it to the top 10.
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