William F. Murphy School Choir Performs Holiday Concert at Area Nursing Homes

Check out two videos of the performance. Want a more upbeat song? Check out the first video. Looking for a more somber song? Check out the second video. ---

Twenty-six members of the fifth and sixth-grade performance choir travelled to two area nursing homes Wednesday to perform a holiday concert.

The choir meets once a week for rehearsal and is under the direction of Murphy Music Teacher Dianne Sabovik. Sabovik organized a similar trip while she was a teacher at Goodrich Elementary School and started the trip at Murphy when she started working at the school three years ago.

The students first performed at the Sunrise Retirement Home in Willowbrook and then traveled to the Fairview Center for Health and Wellness and the Fairview Village Retirement Apartments in Downers Grove.

The Murphy School PTO paid for the bus.

Students had a chance with talk with Fairview Village residents after their performance.

"It's great to have that exuberance," said Fairview Village Resident Frances Peterson. "They are so full of joy."

Faith Ley, a fifth-grader at Murphy, said she enjoyed getting to know her audience.

"It's fun to get to know people in the audience," Ley said. "We don't usually get to talk to people after we perform."

Sabovik said the students found that they had a lot in common with the Fairview Village residents.

"One woman had 15 kids in her family, and one student said his father had 14 kids in his family," Sabovik said.

"They talk about when the residents were in school; how involved they were in music. It's a wonderful experience for them to learn from other people, and it's a nice service for them to do."