Hands shaking, senior Katie Garrett stands under the hot stage lights of the auditorium. She softly gives four beats to the 25 chamber choir singers in front of her, and at the next downbeat, they begin to build the first beautiful chord of their set.
In the summer of 2024, Garrett began the process of arranging Lizzy McAlpine’s “Give Me a Minute” for the chamber choir, the arrangement premiering at the choir’s end-of-year concert on May 12.
Donna Solverud, the choir director at Francis Howell Central, got the idea of Garrett arranging a song at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Garrett finished up the arrangement in early April of 2025.
“I knew that [arranging was] a passion of hers and I thought it would be fun to see if she would be interested in writing a song,” Solverud said.
Growing up in a musical family, Garrett has a natural talent for piano, singing, and music theory.
“I will listen to the song and write out the melody first and decide who [gets it], and then I’ll listen to the chord progressions and decide who gets what part of the chord,” Garrett said.
A musician needs a strong understanding of how to structure a song to be able to arrange, and an understanding of each voice part’s abilities. These skills usually aren’t learned until college, and if they are learned early, it typically takes time to develop them. For Garrett, however, these skills come naturally.
“I heard [some string plucking] and thought it was cool, so I had the altos do it,” Garrett said.
Garrett’s ability to write in enjoyable parts of songs doesn’t go unnoticed by her peers. FHC Choirs social media manager Abby Myers says the string line was her favorite part of the arrangement.
“[Our string part was] really fun because we tried really hard to imitate a bass, and I liked it because the focus was on the altos and the focus is never on the altos,” Myers said.
Although the song was very well-received, anticipating the chamber choirs’ response gave Garrett a lot of anxiety when arranging and was a mental block for her.
“The hardest part of arranging is the confidence of it,” Garrett said. “Especially in the beginning, I would be so paralyzed [by the fear that] everyone was going to hate me that I just wouldn’t do anything. That’s actually why it took me a year to write the entire song. I didn’t want to work on it because if I didn’t have a song people couldn’t hate me for [writing a bad song].”
Solverud was aware of this anxiety that Garrett felt, and watching her overcome it was Solverud’s favorite part of the whole process.
“[I loved watching] her rehearse [the song] and direct it, because I know she was terrified,” Solverud said. “She was so afraid that people wouldn’t like it, or it would sound bad or stupid and watching that realization in her was cool.”
Solverud isn’t the only one who understands why Garrett has the skill set to be able to do this. Myers shared that while anyone can make a pretty song, not everyone can keep more than the sound in mind.
“I don’t think anyone could stay as dedicated and make a song that was still enjoyable for everyone to sing. I’m sure you could arrange a really beautiful song, but you also have to keep in mind your audience and who was going to sing it,” Myers said. “Katie did a really good job of making a beautiful arrangement, but also keeping in mind who was going to sing it and making sure it was fit for us.”
As this was Garrett’s last concert as a member of FHC Choirs, this concert was already emotional, but directing her own song added an extra layer.
“[Directing at the concert] was really special. I felt really grateful I got to arrange a song, got to conduct my own song, which was on my bucket list, and that [my classmates] didn’t vote against it,” Garrett said.
Pride was shared throughout the choir after the performance, but Solverud was particularly proud of Garrett for conquering such a great feat.
“I just feel like a proud mama. Although I really have nothing to do with her musical abilities, just watching her go through that whole process and finishing it [made me proud],” Solverud said. “I know how much anxiety it caused her, I know how much work she put into it and how much she cared about it, I was just so proud of her and so proud of how it sounded because it sounded every bit as good as any choral arrangement I’ve ever done.”
