Central students take the stage two weeks into the school year

Chappelow students forgot their concert etiquette for a brief moment Friday, whooping and hooting when the Greeley Central Chamber Choir took the stage. But music teacher Kris Pierce reminded them that polite clapping was in order for Central's first performance of the year.

The singers presented an opera to about mistaken assumptions and tolerance to the entire Chappelow Arts & Literacy Magnet School. The Reluctant Dragon, based on a story by Kenneth Grahame, isn't a fire-breathing monster, he's a poetry-composing pacifist. St. George, who sets out to kill him, ends up befriending him.

The choir students weren't nervous about the performance, even though it came only two weeks into school. "We were doing a kid's story. It's appropriate, and we had a lot of fun," Central senior Kristen Carrillo said. Many of the choir students also performed the piece for their own classmates last year.

Choir director Jeremy Francisco said the opera teaches his students about different vocal stylings, and performing gives them practice in front of an audience. Carrillo said the most difficult part of the opera was incorporating gestures and facial expressions. But the challenge is exactly what she likes about Central's performing arts magnet program, which just began its second year.