Draft:Dondero Pop Concert

The Dondero Pop Concert was a High School Rock Concert located in Royal Oak, Michigan. In 1967, Rick Hartsoe was named choir director and began adding pop songs to the choir’s song list. The Acappela Choir’s Pop Concert was known for performing rock songs by bands such as Queen, Yes, and Boston. The concert was performed in March of every year from 1967 to 2006.

History

In the years before Rick Hartsoe was hired as the choir director, the choir performed traditional songs, but he made a radical change when he added Jose Feliciano's "Guantanamera" and The Bob Crewe Generation's "Music to Watch Girls By to the choir's song list in 1967. A few years later, more new ground was broken when the Palmer brothers joined the choir. That was when electric guitars were first introduced to the stage.

The choir director was known as a strict teacher, not allowing students to be late or disruptive in class. Despite that, Hartsoe was able to get across to anti-establishment teenagers who wanted a chance to play rock music in front of a stage."

He believed that students could learn just as much from rock music as from classical music. He explained that, "We're not looking for easy songs or fun tunes. We're looking for music that challenges us," Hartsoe said. "Once we started doing this, we realized that it can be as hard or harder than the classics."

As the years went by, the difficulty of the songs attempted increased with the concert covering bands such as Queen, Boston, and Yes.

Hartsoe knew that copying rock music was difficult, but he made sure that his choir and instrumentalists learned the songs as closely to the records as possible.

"I called it replication," Hartsoe explained. "It was singing it as you hear it.”

Every year, the Dondero Pop concert would end with the song Aquarius. The concert ended when Dondero High School closed in 2006.

Links

• 1982 Pop Concert / 20 / Bohemian Rhapsody