Marina High School has something to sing about

It’s been years since Marina High School has had a performance choir or a full-time choral program. Now the program is back, and many at the school are elated — but no one more than the newly hired choir teacher, Eric Graham.

The 24-year-old can be seen at lunch and between tardy bells standing out in the school’s quad looking for new recruits for the his three classes, including the fifth-period Vikings performance choral.

“I am trying to become visible so they know we are there,” Graham said. For the next week-and-a-half he will accept anyone interested in singing.

A big push for the reinstatement of the program came from Keith Kennedy, assistant principal of guidance. Kennedy began looking to expand the almost nonexistent program after years of losing students to larger arts programs at Huntington Beach High School, with the Academy for the Performing Arts.

“I was real happy to hire Eric,” Kennedy said. “I think he’s going to be the guy to make this work.”

Last year, with only one choir class taught by a substitute, the school seemed to be losing any hold on the arts compared to other schools in the district.

“The students either come here and don’t have a program or go to Huntington High for their program,” he said.

Now the time has come to transform Marina into a name synonymous with the vocal arts in the community, Kennedy said.

“Music connects kids to the school and allows them to experience a different kind of art,” he said.

Graham’s classroom can be found way at the back of the school in what is referred to by staff as “the village,” a group of portables in use while construction continues in most of the permanent buildings.

The door is too small and the floor is not strong enough to support the size and weight of the baby grand piano, normally used by the school for class purposes. So in place of the baby grand, an electric keyboard rests in the center of the room, where Graham led the choir in vocal exercises.

“Next year I think we’ll have money available for proper chairs,” Graham said. For the time being, the borrowed white folding chairs will have to do.

“We’re really kind of roughing it,” he said.

None of it seems to faze him, as long as he can lead some happy faces in harmonizing. Graham’s main concern for the 2006-07 school year is, “to get things going and get the program on its feet.”

“A choir program, just like a football or baseball team, has to be built from the ground up,” Graham said.

Kennedy shares Graham’s view, seeing a strong “team” emerging from the program sometime in the next few years.

“I say look for it in the next three to five years,” Kennedy said. “I think people will see a real difference in Marina.”

The group has performances planned at a few local middle schools, again in hopes of sparking interest in future batches of freshmen.

“They will know when they come to Marina there is something to look forward to,” Graham said.