On December 19th, 2023, Oak Lawn Community High School's commercial music department welcomed the MMET (Music, Media, Entertainment, Technology) program from Huntington Beach High School in California.
The group was selected to perform and present at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Festival in Chicago this year, a festival usually reserved for traditional band and Orchestra directors. The group was able to visit Oak Lawn as part of their trip to Chicago. The OLCHS event was organized by Oak Lawn director Bob Habersat and Huntington Beach Director Danielle Collins through their mutual connections at Yamaha.
The students from Huntington Beach participated in a performance exchange with the OLCHS’s own pop music ensemble (MME) in the program’s new rehearsal space. Each group had a chance to perform and jam together as a big group at the end of the event. It was a great experience for everyone involved, further validating the importance of the work of Oak Lawn students in the music program, expanding their cooperative and collaboration skills.
MMET is group of performing pop ensembles that record and perform as part of their curricular day in their Southern California Studio as part of the Academy of performing arts in L.A.
OLCH'S commercial music ensembles will be presenting at the Illinois Music Education Conference at the end of January and the school will be hosting the state's first ever Commercial Music Festival in May. You can check out the latest videos from MME on their YouTube channel. Here is the latest from their holiday concert- a mesh up of Justin Bieber's Baby and Wham's Last Christmas.