The three upper school choirs, the Harvard-Westlake Jazz Singers, and the Trebletones performed in the Upper School Spring Choral Concert, “In Good Conscience,” dedicated to Harvard-Westlake President Thomas Hudnut on May 24 and 25.
The music in the second half was chosen to reflect the message of “being good and doing good” that Hudnut tries to instill in the community through this year’s motto: “Do well and do good.”
A description of the show in the program describes the second half of the show as, “Heartfelt warnings” and “prayers to get through tough times.”
“It’s really a call to the down-trodden,” upper school choral director Rodger Guerrero said.
As part of the dedication, the Chamber Singers sang a song with Hudnut — “Cantique de Jean Racine.”
“It was really special to honor him by singing one of his favorite works with him,” Chamber singer Alex Berman ’14 said of Hudnut.
In addition to being dedicated to Hudnut, the show was also performed in memory of Justin Carr ’14, who was a member of both Chamber Singers and Jazz Singers.
During the performance of “Man in the Mirror,” the combined choirs held up signs in honor of Carr.
Many of the signs said “Justin Carr Wants World Peace,” and one sign read “Let’s Make a Change.”
Kennedy Green ’14, who saw the show on Friday night, said that she had mixed reactions to the signs.
“I felt like I was going to cry,” Green said, “but also I was happy that his memory was living through the choirs.”
Other songs performed during the second half included a performance by Chamber Singers of “Sound of Silence,” and the Trebletones sang and danced to  “Walking on Sunshine.”
“The second half was a lot of fun because you had to do a lot of standing during the first half, but during the second half you got to let loose and just have fun,” Berman said.
While the second half of the show consisted of modern music with dance numbers, the first half was a traditional concert.
Over the course of two hours, the choirs performed twenty numbers.
The musical selections ranged from a Debussy piece in French: “Dieu! Qu’il la fait bon regarder,” to a piece called “Western Songs.”
The show also featured performances by student instrumentalists.
Members of jazz band performed during the Jazz Singers’ set and during a number of songs in the second half, and Michael Zaks ’13 played piano duets with the choir’s accompianist, Sara Shakliyan-Mendez, during “Shenandoah” and “Liebeslieder Walzer.”