NKCHS orchestra to play song inspired by story written by Shawnee girl with cancer, her sister

By Claire Bradshaw

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    NORTH KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KSHB) — The North Kansas City High School orchestra will play a special song dedicated to a young girl with cancer and her family at its concert Tuesday night.

Sisters Josie, 7, and Quincy, 5, of Shawnee, Kansas, wrote about their dream family adventure for Sing Me a Story. The nonprofit takes stories written by kids in need and adds music.

Quincy has acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She was diagnosed in March of 2022. So when the opportunity came to add music to their lives, her mom, Katie, said yes.

“The whole process of being diagnosed was obviously devastating to our family. It was hard. Because we were kind of ripped away as a family,” Katie Fitzgerald said.

Josie and Quincy worked together as sisters, along with their mom, to write “The Adventures of the Fitzgerald Family.” The story takes readers from a trampoline park through portals to Barbie Land and other places where Spider-Man and Michael Jackson make an appearance.

Local composer Jeremy Litster was enlisted by NKCHS orchestra director Sheree Yoder to compose a musical piece to pair with the book. It plays like a film score, according to Yoder.

“I was really focusing on making the atmosphere right. So listening to this should feel like you’re in a certain environment,” Litster said. “Musical storytelling has the power to improve lives.”

Director Sheree Yoder said she was looking for an opportunity to take her students’ musical talents outside of the classroom. When “Sing Me a Story” reached out with the opportunity to play for Quincy and Josie, it fit her goal perfectly.

“Music has healing power. And so that’s what we want to communicate. Music is not something that we’re meant to keep to ourselves, music is meant to be shared,” Yoder said.

Quincy and her family visited NKCHS ahead of the concert to hear a bit of the piece, which Lister titled “Many Sides of the Portal.”

“It was special,” senior orchestra member Joseph Ko said. “I have never seen Quincy in person before so when I saw a cute child, my heart melted and I really wanted to put more effort into my music.”

To Katie Fitzgerald, this project has grown beyond what she imagined. She said she is grateful they will have music to look back at this time in their life.

“It’s been like a sign, everything’s just gonna be okay. It’s here to help you. So it’s just really special to be able to look back on and be like, ‘We got through this number one, but you guys really worked together to do this,’” Fitzgerald said.

If you want to attend the NKCHS orchestra concert, it is Tuesday, May 7 at 7 p.m.

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