FOR THE LOVE OF SINGING

Once a week, a group of middle schoolers skip the lunch line and head straight to the music room. They spend the next thirty minutes warming up, working through repertoire, and singing together—then grab a to-go container on their way to Flex Period. This is Lunch Choir, and every student chooses to be here.

The group started three years ago when a handful of eighth graders approached Director of Choirs Danielle Molan with a heartfelt ask: they loved singing and wanted more time to do it—with other students who felt the same way. “They came to me and said, ‘We really want to be serious about choir—what can we do?’” Molan recalls. The answer was a new ensemble—open to any middle schooler, regardless of ability or which performing arts ensemble or class they were already in.

That openness is what makes Lunch Choir work. It’s the only ensemble that brings together sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, and it draws students from across the performing arts. Some, like eighth graders Bella Ponton and Cole Rathman, are already in choir and want more time to sing during the week. Others, like Liah Drechsler and Betty Tornetta, play instruments in orchestra or another ensemble and have no other way to sing in a group. For them, Lunch Choir fills a real gap.

Molan, who grew up splitting her own time between trumpet, choir, and piano, sees real value in that crossover. “Singing and playing an instrument and performing in a musical—they all influence each other,” she says. The group performs at winter and spring concerts, and several of its earliest members have since auditioned for Shipley Singers, the Upper School’s select choir—something Molan says might not have happened without this lunchtime starting point.

What began with about 10 students learning “What a Wonderful World” has grown steadily, but the spirit hasn’t changed. It’s still a room full of kids who showed up because they wanted to—and who would rather sing than eat.