Gallery • 27 Photos

The Dirty Birds : All photography by Ms Callicott

On Thursday, March 17th, 2022, Academic Magnet had its annual talent show at the Rose Maree Myers Theater. For the small price of $5, audience members were able to witness a great night of beautiful vocal and instrumental performances thanks to the planning of Mr. Grimshaw. In some form, the talent show has been going on for around 30 years. It started as a fundraiser for the math department, but once Mr. Grimshaw began teaching at Magnet (solidifying the music department) he produced it. This was his 21st talent show (because of a one year covid break).

As people trickled in, the AMHS Dirty Birds (including Mr. Grimshaw) did a performance together- five different rhythms. Then, the emcees welcomed everyone, announced the judges and criteria, and told some great jokes. The emcees for the night were Josh Moore and myself, McKenna Ronchetto, in case you were wondering ).

The night was broken up into two acts with eight performances before intermission and nine after. First were mainly individual acts. Kira Hammerick was the first performer, doing a rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s “I Remember.” Sophia Leclerc sang “Just The Two Of Us”  by Grover Washington Jr. and played guitar. Nora Cheng, Irene Liu, Sarah Roop played “You Are The Reason” by Calum Scott on flute, clarinet, and piano. Next up was a 21 Pilots Medley arranged and sung by Noah Johnson while playing ukulele. Abby Youmans did a guitar and vocal rendition of Mumford and Sons “Little Lion Man.” Mateu Bordas and Victoria Risher did a piano and vocal duet of “Hostage” by Billie Eilish. Erin Baylock sang “Dos Oruguitas” by Sebastian Yatra from Encanto, and finally Emma Fang played Franz Schubert’s “Impromptu No. 4 Ab Major” on piano.

The second act had more collaborative performances, but some individuals went as well. In between performances, we read shout outs people purchased for a dollar during intermission. They ranged from “Good job Daniel!” to “Sarah smells” with some more randomness (Tony the Tiger voices, people writing themselves shout outs, etc) thrown in. Josh even did a promposal :).

Starting off the second act was Paisley Hodges playing guitar and singing “Jolene” by Dolly Parton. From there, Will Brown and Oliver Abar played loop guitar and drums to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.” Amelia Kitchens performed “Beautiful Day” by Jamie Grace on guitar and sang. Then, Anna Clifford did a classical guitar piece, “Prelude No. 1 in e minor” by Villa-lobos. I played an original song “Jump” on guitar and sang with my sister Maysen. Next, Angela and Johnny Mei did a four hands on piano duet of Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Then it came time for the bands. A Jazz Quartet comprised of Maria Cymbalyuk, Mebron Jorvy, Samuel Persinger,  and Daniel Roberts played “Blues In The Closet” by Oscar Pettiford. Milk (Sarah Burnette, Marianne Jenkins, Lia Shalit, and Leddy Scheurer) played “Male Fantasy” an original song by Leddy Scheurer.
Finally, Sonder (Aaron Causey, Mebron Jorvy, Garrett Ziegler, and Andrew Lamm) played “In The Meantime” by Spacehog. Everybody did a great job performing.

I changed clothes before I sang with my sister, so while I was getting ready, Hunter Sutcliffe was my stand in. I don’t think anybody noticed the difference…

At the end of the night the winners were announced. All performers were called back to the stage as the judges finished their tallies. After what they said was a close contest, Anna Clifford placed third, Milk placed second, and Angela and Johnny Mei took first place.

Overall, the talent show was a great success. Thank you Ms. Callicot for taking the photos in the gallery and for being willing to share them. Mr. Christensen over at SOA, thank you for all your technical help in the theater. Finally, thank you Mr. Grimshaw for putting everything together once again. It was a great show. If you weren’t able to come this time, I highly recommend you come next year… though I can’t promise the jokes will be as good.

Some music jokes for you:

Q. Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens?

A. Because they kept saying “Bach, Bach, Bach”

Q. What do you call a cow that can play and instrument?

A. A Moo-sician

Q. What’s the difference in a fish and a piano?

A. You can tune a piano, but you can’t Tuna fish!

Q. What kind of music are balloons afraid of?

A. Pop music!

and of course the classic pun, “Without music, life would Bb!”