Education
Classes and Concerts in Texas
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
After Saint Louis, we had a very fun day in Austin doing a masterclass for 8 choirs and a performance at the Etta and Joseph Miller Performing Arts Center. It often seems to us, that from a choral education point of view, Texas is the new Minnesota. Of course it’s a big ol’ state, but so many colleges and high schools with seriously good choral programs. For instance there were five choirs in attendance at our Stude Hall concert last night. We’ve seen quite a lot of them, and always look forward to it. Our Houston concert in the magnificent Stude Concert Hall at Rice University last night was the 6th in Chanticleer’s history/ Today we had a class with the University of St. Thomas singers and the Madrigal Singers of the High School of Performing and Visual Arts. Tomorrow we drive to Alexandria Louisiana for another class and concert on Friday, then back to California to end this fairly brief ( certainly compared to our romp through Europe) tour in La Jolla.
Bye to Dale Warland, Hello Christmas!
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011We finished our happy collaboration with Dale Warland today. Vance George came by to hear some of the results. Now Thanksgiving, and then the Christmas journey.
Meanwhile some LAB grads came by last Saturday to help us package some of our Love Story CD's (and play the new HALO Combat Evolved game). They did about 850 of them! Thanks to them, hope all their Christmas concerts go well, and we'll see them in the New Year.
LAB 5 Singing!
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011LAB 5 is now in the performing part of its session singing their program "International Song" on a mini-tour punctuated by educational events – kind of like us! Saturday night they were in a historic corner of San Francisco, Chanticleer-wise, at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church.
In the background here is the Mission Dolores, where Chanticleer's first concert was given in l978. The green church in the foreground is St. Matthew's Lutheran where we rehearsed for many many years – the office was even there early on. Pretty soon the office had to be moved, but we continued to rehearse there until a few years ago when combined rehearsal and office space became available in the Girls Chorus' new building. It's a very nostalgic place for us.
LAB warms up downstairs in what was our rehearsal room all those years. We we also had board meetings, receptions, and auditions there.
LAB's 'touring program' is a fun collection of songs from all over the world from the Renaissance to Latin American music of the present in about 7 languages. They get better and better especially now that 80% of the participants in any given LAB session will have done one before.
Vance George – Music Director Emeritus of the SF Symphony Chorus and LAB Choir's advisor came, was very pleased with their progress and offered helpful notes. Chanticleer baritone Matthew Knickman came along as well.
Meet and greet, Chanticleer style follows the concert.
LAB performed at our high school Youth Choral Festival last Monday. 7 of them helped out and sang with the students at the middle school festival on Friday. On Tuesday they will be appearing at Cleveland and Lincoln Elementary Schools in Oakland and doing an exchange with Nova ( of the Cantara Children's Choir) in their capacity as Chanticleer's In-School Ambassadors. Then next weekend their tour continues at St. Timothy's in Danville at 2.30pm on Saturday, and Sunday October 30 in San Francisco at First Church of Christ Scientist at 5.30pm. If any of them ever joins Chanticleer, they'll be ready for our schedule!
We're heading out on Monday for Edmond, Oklahoma, Hunstville, Alabama ( this replaces the performance last spring which had to be cancelled because of the storms), Tennessee and Texas. Then Kansas. After that it will be all Christmas all the time!
Albany, A.P. Giannini, Hoover, & Crystal Children’s Middle School Groups join us for the day; LAB 5 helps
Friday, October 21st, 2011This was the week for youth choral festivals. Today we had four big middle school groups – several hundred students and their directors- with us for the day. Here's what we looked like – us, the four choirs, and 7 members of LAB 5- onstage for the concert at First Unitarian Church singing our tutti numbers – Hava Nashira and Little David, Play on your harp.
The format of the Middle School Festival is like that of our High School Festivals – only shorter. Our final program comes around at about 3pm, after a day of singing and working together. First we should send a hearty shout-out to all the students for making music part of their lives. We promise them they'll never regret it. Their dedicated choir directors also deserve lots of appreciation- Mary Stocker ( Albany,) Courtney Lindl ( AP Giannini,) Kenneth Koppes ( Hoover Middle School,) and Miao Hsieh ( Crystal Children's Choir.)
Kids arrived by bus around 9.30, then we warmed up and rehearsed our tutti numbers together. Education and LAB Choir Director Ben Johns conducted.
After the tutti rehearsals, each choir sang its own numbers.
A.P. Giannini Mixed Choir
Albany Middle School Chamber Choir
Herbert Hoover Middle School Advanced Choir
Crystal Children's Choir
Lunch and some letting off steam in the courtyard under the San Francisco sun followed. We had lunch with the choir directors.
After lunch, the heart of the day- each choir has a session with 3 of us offering suggestions about their concert pieces.
Herbert Hoover with Eric, Alan, and Brian
Albany with Gregory, Kory and Matt C.
Crystal Children with Matt K., Cortez, and Ben
A.P. Giannini with Casey, Adam and Mike
As always these days have a family atmosphere. Board members, donors, and friends come – along with parents of the students. Former ensemble member Dan Cromeenes acted as accompanist, and reunited with old colleagues.
Seven members of LAB 5 did all kinds of things, from bringing cookies, to greeting students, observing workshops, participating in tutti numbers, and offering a little serenade before the concert.
We all felt good about the day and about the concert. We hope the students and choir directors did too, and we hope we see them again soon.
Napa, Palo Alto, SOTA, Ukiah + LAB 5 join us for Youth Choral Festival
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011Four High Schools attended our annual Youth Choral Festival today, held for the first time at the San Francisco Conservatory right near our office. It was the largest ever in terms of attendance – 284 students from four schools. Ukiah came the furthest – leaving at 7.45 am to get here, Napa and Palo Alto High Schools, and San Francisco's School of the Arts. Something new was that Vance George ( Music Director Emeritus of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and advisor to our LAB Choir) joined us to rehearse and conduct the tutti pieces, as well as offering sessions with the visiting Choir Directors.
Many members of our LAB Choir were on hand to help out, greet, direct traffic, stage manage, and greet donors at the reception. Three members of LAB 5 are in the Palo Alto High School concert choir; they did double duty all day. They also gave the concert a very lively opening and sang the day to a close after the reception. ( keep reading.) We really appreciated their being with us today. Here, at 9am, they get their marching orders from Ben Johns, Chanticleer Education Director and Director of the LAB Choir.
There were several nice familial things today: Napa High School is the alma mater of new Chanticleer soprano Kory Reid, whose Choir Director Travis Rogers came today with his concert choir. Kory's first exposure to Chanticleer was in 2002 – at this very Youth Choral Festival!
To get the day started, and before warmup we sang Eric Whitacre's "This Marriage."
Then we all get to work with Vance rehearsing the tutti numbers which the visiting choirs have rehearsed in advance. Gregory and Michael were the pianists, as the Brahms Liebesleider Walzer and German Requiem are accompanied.
We have lunch with the choir directors after hearing their choruses. After lunch we split up and go work with the individual choruses on the songs they have brought for the concert.
SF School of the Arts – whose director is former Chanticleer tenor, Todd Wedge.
Ukiah High School directed by Denise Doerling.
Palo Alto High School directed by Michael Najar, assisted by Monica Covitt
Napa High School directed by Travis Rogers.
Lunch had offered, as always, a chance to know the Choir Directors better and to hear more about how it's going for them in the public schools.
Kory works with his old choir, Napa High School ( he sang tenor with them) along with Alan and Ben.
Brian, Matthew and Casey with Palo Alto High School
Eric, Cortez and Matt Curtis with SOTA
Gregory, Michael and Adam with Ukiah.
Another rehearsal of the two Brahms pieces with Vance went until 5.30pm, everybody successfully combatting mid-afternoon fatigue to enable Vance to achieve things at the concert which he hadn't been able to do during the rehearsals. Thanks for sticking in, everybody!
LAB 5 opened the concert with their Piazolla tango, and then the mini-opera "Italian Salad" which got the concert off to a lighthearted yet very impressive start.
Then all the choirs sang the numbers they had sung earlier in the day and on which we had worked together. Then us
We sang de Vivanco, R. Strauss, Duke Elington and Freddy Mercury's "Somebody to Love" and then enjoyed the best ovation we get all year!
A reception for donors followed, attended by a number of our Board members among others. LAB 5 came along, then just had to sing one more time, in the stairwell, before we all left. They sang "Deep River" and then Casey and Eric joined them for "Ubi Caritas."
It was a great day, one of our favorites in the year, when we get to enjoy seeing future generations of singers coming up behind us. Maybe there was a future Chanticleer member in today's group ( as Kory was l0 years ago.) At least we know these students are going to keep singing all their lives, and that's a good thing. Thanks to them, their teachers, our supporters and Vance for a successful day. We're doing it again on Friday for Middle School Choruses. See you then.