Cafe Concert is served Sunday

January 27, 2012

Photo submitted by Sheila Zinke The VCHS senior choir rehearses "The Circle of Life" from the Disney film "The Lion King". The number will appear on the "menu" of the annual Cafe Concert, which premieres in the HAC on Sunday, Jan. 29 at 3 p.m.

The cafe is open, and music is on the menu.

Valley City High School's vocal and instrumental musicians will serve up the 24th Annual Cafe Concert on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. at the Hi-Liner Activity Center, with evening shows at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 30 and 31.

"The brainchild I came up with was that the concert songs could be offered as a menu," said junior and senior high choir director Sheila Zinke. "It's hard to find songs about food that teenagers want to sing, so we let them pick the music for their ensembles."

Four genres will be represented in the concert: musicals, country, pop ballads, and rock and roll in the form of appetizers, soups and salads, main dish and dessert, respectively.

Zinke said this is the first year the concert is adopting an all-out food theme, to coordinate with an help kick off the Barnes County Historical Society's "Key Ingredients: America by Food" Smithsonian exhibit.

The music for the show was chosen last fall, and students started practicing in the middle of December, Zinke said. Each musical number is choreographed, and two stages are set up at each end of the Hi-Liner Activity Center.
"The entertainment just goes from stage to stage," said Zinke. "It's a nice jam-packed evening full of music. The concert is really Valley City's signature event."

All of VCHS's choirs and ensembles will be featured, and the VCHS jazz band will perform before the shows and after intermission. Valley City sixth, seventh and eighth graders are also getting involved in the concert. Each grade will provide the opening number on a different day of the concert. Zinke said some of their songs will include "Be Our Guest" from "Beauty and the Beast", and "Food, Glorious Food" from the musical "Oliver".

Tickets are available by calling the VCHS office at 845-0483, but "plenty of good seats" are available at the door, according to Zinke. Tickets are $6 per table, $5 for adult bleacher seats and $4 for student bleacher seats.