AE/MS Music Program Makes A Comeback with Band and Chorus

Mikayla Colburn has done an unbelievable job directing, Kian Ordway, Gabe Verite, Evian Powers, Landon Dumont, Ember Morgan, Briley Mudgett, Lydia Buteau, Bentley Jenkerson, Emmett Peterson, Ava Strahan-Howe, Scarlett Drewry, Amelia Bryant, Ellie Keyser, Lilly Keyser, Lakota Peterson, Kailyn Cochran, Mari Shedd, and Titus Chenette. We are very honored to have such a great leader and group to represent us as a school. Caption: Ava Eltzroth. Photo: Myles Gordon

Music programs can help kids learn to collaborate, gain self-esteem, make quality work, and have determination. Mikayla Colburn is the Andover Elementary/Middle School music teacher for all grades K–8. She also runs Chorus and Band programs that let kids experience all the different ways to use music, from singing to playing instruments.

She wants her students to know there is more value to music, and music can make them feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Ms. Colburn’s goal for her class is to show her students that music can be expanded to so many lengths, and there is a lot more to music than kids might think.

AE/MS earned a second-place award at Trills and Thrills in the spring, and they are striving for first place in 2024! Caption and photo: Kasey Schoch

These programs started in 2022, and at that time there were only 11 kids in Ms. Colburn’s Band program and 14 in her Chorus group. The program has expanded greatly in 2023. There are 35 kids in her Band program and 24 kids in her Chorus group.

Ms. Colburn hopes that one day the programs will get so big that she has to have a partner to run the program. She wants everyone to experience and expand on musical topics.

Both groups are heading toward wonderful things, with multiple concerts and fun activities that the kids are really looking forward to. Their first concert, The Winter Concert, is going to be on December 7, and they will be singing holiday songs for the school. Their second concert, The Spring Concert, will be sometime at the end of May, so be looking out for the ending weeks of May.

The Chorus group is also going to be performing in Trills and Thrills again this year, in the first week of June. For Trills and Thrills, the group goes to Alvirne High School in Hudson, New Hampshire, to perform their song(s) in front of judges, to vie for the award for best singing out of all the schools participating. Afterward, for the Thrills part, they go to Canobie Lake Park for the rest of the day.

Last year, the Chorus group won the second-place award. This year, they hope to get the first- place award.

Ms. Colburn’s Band students are trying a wide variety of instruments and finding the one they like best. The kids who participate in Band have to be in grades 4–8 at AE/MS. This year, instead of performing as a group, the musicians are going to be performing in the Winter and Spring Concert individually, with solos or duets. The Band is all individual instrument lessons, but Ms. Colburn hopes she can one day have a Band group where all the different instruments are played together.

It can be hard for Ms. Colburn to put these programs together, and it takes a lot of work. AE/MS is a smaller school, which can make it difficult to have enough students to build the programs. Scheduling lessons is challenging due to students being enrolled in other activities the school provides. It can be difficult to weave everything together, but Ms. Colburn is doing her best for her students.