Fall Update 2012

Off and running this season! All of the groups are settled in, rosters set, music issued. In the Callanwolde and West groups, we've been through all of the music (except for Holiday) at least once. The pieces in yellow should be memorized already and the ones in orange should be learned before the end of October. 

Holiday music will be ready to be distributed the week of Oct 16, which will give us 7 weeks of preparation before the Holiday Recital.

International Dinner

Oct 14, 2012

TR/IMM feature set--Ayele, Lucky Little Cricket

w/TCC--Scorpio and Orion

Holiday Recital

Dec 8, 2012

S’Vivon                 3  = D (mel) C/B (1st counter mel) A (2nd counter mel)

Ocho Kandelikas       2  = A/B--C/D 

Hanerot Halalu      2 =  C/D--A/B

Ayele 

Come In!

On to Bethlehem Town

Cuckoo Carol

Infant Holy         3 = A  B/C  D

A New Year’s Toast/Hoppin’ John

Round of 3 Country Dances    3 =  D (Sing After...) C/B (Robin Hood)   A(Tom)

Tell Me a Story, Sing Me a Song

March, 2013

Hine Ma Tov: A Story of Two Brothers   2  = C/D--A/B

Victory Chorus from Brundibar – with book by Maurice Sendak

Devil and Bailiff McGlynn   divisi @ end

The Jazz Man – Britten

Children's Prayer from Hansel and Gretel   2 =  A/B--C/D 

The Fox   2 = C/D--A/B

Scorpio and Orion

Lucky Little Cricket      2 = A/B--C/D

Ombra Mai Fu 

A Time to Dance

May 11 or 18, 2013

ALL

3 Country Dances  3 = D (Sing After...) C/B (Robin Hood)   A(Tom)

Jai Ho 

E Te Iwi E    3 = A  B/C  D

TR/IMM

Ah Si Mon Moine

Lucky Little Cricket    2 =  A/B--C/D 

The Fox 2 = C/D--A/B

Tango from Solfege Suite  2 = C/D--A/B

Training-IMM Part assignments - Repertoire

PIECE	SOPRANO		ALTO
	1	2	1	2
Dove and Maple Tree	A/B		C/D
Hamisha Asar	D	C/B	A
Hussar	C/D		A/B
Little Birch Tree	A/B		C/D
*Ton The	C	D	A	B
Sesere Eeye	A	B/C	A
Wanderer	A	B	C	D
Sound the Trumpet	A/B		C/D

January Report

January started with some new choristers, so playing some get-t0-know-you games was in the line up for the first couple of weeks.

Concepts

Posture, breathing reinforced constantly. Feet 10 inches apart, shoulders back and down. Keeping the rhythm in the body was a big focus this month. Steady beat in the feet and hands, then subdivision practice to prepare for sections in Birch Tree and Hamisha Asar where 2 + 3 utilized. Audiation with do-la descending was a crucial step this month. Some choristers still singing Do-la and Do-sol descending the same. Explore idea of songcatching: context of songs tell stories about people and their lives. Songs create rallying points for groups of people, instruct children, etc.

Repertoire

Birch Tree--solfege, reinforcing minor scale and Do-la skip. Meaning of song. FAQ--what's a balalaika!? Notes and rhythms are solid. Moving ahead with shaping phrases on the breath, dynamics, diction.

Wanderer--rhythm/diction lesson. How do we know where to put the final consonant? Working from p. 6 to the end with "land" on whole note and "light" on half note. Strong rhythmic pulse reinforced to get the canon going and call/response on "wamara"

Hamisha Asar--put the beat in the hands and feet and listening to the melody. Worked with diction right away--what words do you recognize? what language? What's the story? First verse memorized. Starting 2nd verse pronunciation.

Dove and Maple--Analyzing from listening to AYS-North at Holiday recital. Other sections of choir learned quite a bit from not performing it in December. They basically had it memorized by the first rehearsal in January. Worked on security of starting pitches, form, diction. Started Czech language.

Sound the Trumpet--continued where we left off in December. Worked cross-voicing sections and melismas at end of piece.

Ton The--started with language (the piece is a tongue-twister after all) and all melody sections by rote. Taught alto part with solfege to reinforce the Sol-Mi-Sol-Do relationship.

Saman--1st movement section and 1st chant are underway. Several kids learned at camp and are helping move the process along.

MISC REP News:

West Choir has the most number of new students, so Brianne re-visited the pieces from the fall--Sally, Kitty, etc.

HOUSEKEEPING: music folders distributed to new students, new agendas for JAN-MAR to everyone.

Back-to-Rehearsal Update-- North and East

Caroline and Meaghan have had a really great first two rehearsals back! I know it's early, but we are really feeling like the remainder of this season's training performances have the potential to be really spectacular. The repertoire is already coming along so smoothly, and the tone of rehearsals has been set at a higher level from the start of last week's rehearsal. We have high hopes that the singers will continue to meet and exceed our expectations as Young Singers.

We've used solfege to teach most of Birch Tree, and even did it in two part canon on our first sing-through.

We were also able to use solfege to learn Ton The. First they learned the "catchy ending" of the melody, and the entire melody fell into place soon after. Last week we learned the harmony that starts on p. 9, and we heard no complaints, only beautiful high notes :)

Only one of our singers was at summer camp, so Hamisha is pretty new to most of them. So we started with the meter, then jumped right into the text, using the monotone treble I part in the last verse to practice. Then it was no problem for them to go back and put the same text with the melody.

We've learned the melody and some of the harmony to the Wanderer. Our biggest challenge on that one will be making those phrases musical!

We're working on rhythms with IMMs, and using the syncopation the Hussar to practice.

We are continuing work on Sound the Trumpet and Dove and the Maple Tree, of course. We have introduced the concept of Songcatching. We talked about Ton The and Birch Tree, showing the singers where they could look in the front of their octavos to find out information about the song and why it fits the theme of songcatching. They seem to grasp the concept of songcatching, but don't seem to have many ideas so far of what that means for them.

On an informal note... We ended rehearsal with a runthrough of Kitty Alone. They were basically shouting, and after stopping and re-starting one or two times, we continued on. They immediately changed into the most beautiful, pure tone, and I turned to Caroline and said "I could listen to this all day." So we are glad to be working with these singers, and looking forward to seeing where they go musically over the next 4 months or so.

November Report

Things are crashing right along for Callanwolde and West groups. I will have to say that our Wednesday group is the furthest along in terms of memorization of the program. However, as you know, we need to cut bait with these groups on Dove and the Maple Tree. New plan--feature AYS-N and East on Dove since they have it learned, and feature AYS-C and West on Sound the Trumpet. Along those same lines, we have also spent very little time on the Brahms Lullaby. First verse will be solo or small group, and second verse will be everyone. Sorry for over-programming! Doggone Polar Express...

Last week, we did a "No Paper" week just to see where we were with memorization. Wed and Thurs groups seemed to do OK, but Tuesday group seemed behind.

Our biggest trouble spots memorization-wise were:
Tomorrow Shall Be, Deck the Hall (words)
Sound the Trumpet and S'Vivon (melodic/harmonic material)
Fum Fum Fum (Only Tuesday had major difficulty) - Do verse 1, 2, and repeat v. 1. No verse 3 for the Recital

The new plan is below, same concert order as before:

Sound the Trumpet Henry Purcell AYS-C and W; sit after singing

Dove and the Maple Tree Antonin Dvorak AYS-N and E enter and perform in front of seated singers

Lullaby Johannes Brahms soloists come down front

Fum, Fum, Fum Spanish Traditional

Ocho Kandelikas arr. Joshua Jacobson

S’Vivon Betty Bertaux

Deck the Hall arr. Stephen J. Ortlip

Wassail Song from Folksongs of the Four Seasons Ralph Vaughan Williams

Tomorrow Shall be My Dancing Day John Gardner

Christmas Time is Here Vince Guaraldi

TR-North

This week's rehearsal in Dunwoody went well. We started rehearsal with a decent amount of solfege work, focusing particular on singing with unified, pure vowels. It generally takes our singers a few minutes to settle into choral--as opposed to solo--singing, so as a group we've been spending a lot of time talking about the impact listening has on blend and intonation. Singing the major arpeggios on solfege has been great for this group; we've noticed that once we've run through them, the students are able to sing parallel harmonies with much more accuracy.

After warming up, we jumped immediately into Dove and Maple Tree. The students are able to sing through the first two pages with some degree of confidence, though there are certain areas that still catch them off guard. We asked the singers to identify areas in which the notes are the same and areas in which the notes change. While they understand the movement of the notes conceptually, they are still guessing a bit when singing through the piece. Using Dove and Maple Tree as an introduction to marking up scores would probably serve the North students quite well. Sound the Trumpet went fairly well this week, too.

It took us a bit of time to get the holiday music handed out and accounted for (A special shout-out goes to Meaghan for a job well done!). That said, we were still able to dive into the meat of a few of the songs. The entire group learned the melody for Brahms' Lullaby. Afterwards, they took turns reading the text in German (with a few corrections made by Meaghan). Their instincts were spot on, and they seem to have a good handle on the pronunciation. We look forward to combining the German with the melody next rehearsal. In addition to learning the melody for the Brahms, we learned both the melody and harmony for Ocho Kandelikas. We also talked about Ladino and the ways in which the pronunciation of the text differs from Spanish. This is already a group favorite! Next week, we will begin to work through Polar Express.

We are going to begin our next rehearsal with a big heart-to-heart about respectful rehearsal etiquette. Our talk should tie in nicely with a review of the rubrics. The group may or may not have to do a bit more standing than usual, too ;). We're on the right path for an incredibly successful holiday performance, and with a little more attention, the singers will look as wonderful as they sound!

Week of OCT 11-13 and 18-20

Our International Dinner was a great success and the kids sang well. Still have a lot of work to do on basic performance rituals: riser behavior, what to do with hands, feet etc., taking direction during a performance. Overall, though, they did well with lining up during warm-up and pulling things together in a short warm-up time allotment.

Last week was Holiday music distribution week. All groups, except for North and East checked out music. Those groups got a nice introduction to the music by rote and a general overview, and will check out music this coming week (OCT 24).

Tried a new thing with the West choir this week to motivate them to memorize music faster. There's a poster that has a pocket for each child. When they memorize a piece of music and sing it for me or an "experienced" singer (could be someone who already knows the piece--Tomorrow or S'Vivon, for example) to hear them. Challenged them each to memorize one piece the first day. It was interesting hearing what they thought was memorized! ...very telling about the kids' overall perception of what it means to "know" a piece.

Part distribution for Holiday Music--

Sound the Trumpet - AB/CD

Dove and Maple Tree – AB/CD

Brahms Lullaby – CD/AB

Fum, Fum, Fum – unison

Ocho Kandelikas – CD/AB

S’Vivon - IMMs on melody all the way through; then A B/C D = S1, S2, A2

Wassail – Unison

Deck the Hall – CD/AB

Christmas Time is Here – Unison

Tomorrow Shall be My Dancing Day – Unison. Choose singers to do descant

Polar Express – AB/CD

Housekeeping: Still wrapping up odds and ends of Informal Uniform pieces distributed to singers. Sing-a-thon packets going out this week (OCT 24). Remind kids to register practice time on Charms.