As a member of the Seneca Valley Jazz Ensemble I, I am required to play a concert at the Senior Luncheon event, which was on Tuesday December 20^th this year. As it gets me out of class, and I am able to play jazz music with my friends, I enjoy it a lot.

The Senior Luncheon is an event for senior citizens in our community to come listen to the Chamber Orchestra, Madrigal Singers, and Jazz Ensemble (in that order). I play some pieces from their concert or holiday songs they prepared. The seniors then go into the cafeteria and NHS volunteers serve them lunch, which the cafeteria staff kindly provides.

I think it is very cool how the manager of the event, superintendent, and principal of the Intermediate High School all took time to give speeches. As someone who has gone to this school for four years, I have not seen very many speeches done by the superintendent or principals because they are very busy all of the time, so I applaud them for taking time out of their busy days to speak to people who are not even part of their school. They just wanted to connect to the senior citizens and make them feel welcome, which I think they achieved.

While much of the event went on just like any concert, it felt more personal and planned around the seniors. For example, Dr. Vitale told everyone a story about holiday cards and the difficulty of making them. Well, if this concert was being shown to high school students, they would not care one bit about holiday cards that the superintendent is making, but as seniors have gone through that experience, they could relate more. The event was also concluded with a prayer. This is something that public schools are not allowed to do with high school students, as not everyone believes in a religion or the same religion, but because most, if not all, of the seniors are religious, it was very fitting to end the event this way.

Everything about this event is very enjoyable, both for the performers and the audience. The performers and leaders of the performances try to pick songs that the audience will enjoy and even be able to relate to, which is something that does take time and a considerable amount of thought. Even though I performed, it was still very nice to be able to see all of my fellow classmates perform, especially because there were some things I had never seen because I had been unable to make it to their main concert. The seniors are a great audience and this is a very good way to include our community into our school and I hope that in the future more people are able to take advantage of this great event.