A group of extra-curricular music students from St. Francis Catholic High School in St. Catharines are craving a win in this year’s CBC Music Class Challenge — though they didn’t need to work constantly for it.
The Music Class Challenge sees music classes around the country compete for a chance to win a classroom recording kit valued at $5,000, and this year students from St. Francis’ music club have entered with a music video cover of Constant Craving by Canadian artist K.D. Lang.
The project was led by the school’s music department coordinators Frankie Pietrangelo and Rob Oliveira.
Pietrangelo said the students learned and recorded the song and a music video completely in the classroom, with the help of two of the school’s recent graduates, Colin Wilson, who recorded the audio, and Kyle Phelan, who shot the video.
It only took about a week to learn the song and get everything done, said Pietrangelo.
“To be honest, our kids are so talented here that honestly after the first rehearsal it was already sounding very good.”
He said the song was chosen from a list of 15 Canadian songs provided by the challenge. He and Oliveira listened to each song and chose Constant Craving because it suited the students abilities the most, the club having some “very strong singers.”
“We basically assessed what we have in terms of our strength in our own music club that we have here, and we thought that one would be the best,” said Pietrangelo.
The club goes by the name “Phoenix Music Industry,” and has members from grades nine to 12.
The students who partook in the video are Isabella Agnino, Lea Formicuccia and Carlo Rescigno on vocals; Jacob Dell on acoustic guitar; Carson Greene on bass guitar; Jacob Riganelli on percussion; and Molly Nullmeyer on cello.
This year’s challenge will be judged by Ewan Currie of the Sheepdogs, concert violinist Min-Jeong Koh, Hamilton-based singer-songwriter IsKwé and mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah.
Ten finalists for each category will be announced Dec. 8 and winners will be announced Dec. 15.
Here’s the video:
