Welcome Back!

Dear Choir Parents/Guardians,
                                                                                     

Welcome back to Grant for another wonderful year! I’m very excited to be returning for my second year as Director of Choirs and to continue building upon the fabulous vocal tradition at Grant. For those of you who are new, I look forward to meeting you and your student. For those returning, I’m so glad to have you back in the fold and can’t wait to start making music.

This year promises to have a number of highlights and exciting opportunities. The A Cappella choir will be getting brand new robes and will have the honor of pairing with the Wilson High School A Choir and the Metropolitan Youth Symphony for a performance of John Rutter’s Gloria at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The General Chorale has been renamed the Blue & Gray Singers, will for the first time ever have professional, matching robes, and boasts over 60 members – the largest non-auditioned high school choir in the district! The Royal Blues will have the honor of performing with the Portland Symphonic Choir for their Wintersong concert in December at St. Mary’s Cathedral and are planning a trip to Ashland to share a variety of music on texts by William Shakespeare. All of the choirs will also be part of the first ever interdepartmental arts collaboration at the Winter Concert. The concert, billed as Grantasia!, will feature choirs, bands, string orchestra, the drama department, dance department and the visual arts department.

Apart from our incredible concert lineup our daily class work will focus on teaching music theory skills, foundations of music history, sight reading exercises, score analysis, team building skills, performance etiquette and professional musicianship skills. Students will develop healthy singing habits, which in turn become healthy lifestyle habits, through daily warm-ups, breathing exercises, and relaxation techniques. All of the choirs will cover a broad range of musical styles ranging from Classical to Pop, Renaissance to Jazz, Folk to Modern, Experimental to Rock, and everything beyond.

I will do my best to communicate all necessary information to you during the year. Through our new student information system, Synergy, I will easily be able to communicate to all of you via email prior to concerts and rehearsals. Also, the Grant Choral Department has a blog with all of the current dates/times on the calendar. The website is grantchoir.blogspot.com I will update the blog throughout the year as well with photos/videos and reviews of our concerts. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to call or email me at any time. I look forward to hearing from you. Within the first week of school I will send out an email to everyone asking for a list of volunteers. If you would like to be considered for a volunteer position please respond to the email, or let me know. A list of current dates/times/rehearsals is on the reverse side of this letter.

Thank you again to all of you for your support of the choir program! I’m looking forward to another amazing year at Grant teaching you students and I hope you are too. Time to sing!