Just a heads up to check out the updated schedule for the year, as well as the practice videos for Missa de Angelis, posted on the *new* Practice Resources Page!
We are really excited at how the camp went today. Incorporating music/holding binders will definitely be a bit of an initial challenge, but we'll keep at it! It was exciting to see some new faces at choir, and (when they want to!) those children can definitely create some beautiful sounds! Now we just need to find the trick to get that to happen all of the time.... :) We hope you love the music as much as we do, and we're looking forward to adding to more of the Church's musical heritage to our repertoire.
We also want to specifically thank the parents for helping us muddle through this transition. While your children have to want to sing, it is your support that holds the figurative and literal keys to getting them to our rehearsals and performances. While we are very passionate about our music ministry to the children, we want to let you know how much we value the fact that you're making their sacred music education a priority as well. We hope to continue to build our relationship with you parents with more easily accessible communication. Looking ahead to our first rehearsal on this coming Wednesday, October 3 from 3:45-4:45, we need to ask again for your assistance in helping us network to get our numbers up to a committed 20 for the year. That way, we can begin working from a sound foundation of volume of voices where it's not as intimidating for the children to sing out. What we're doing:
How can you help? The best advantage that you parents have is that you are all "linked in" to the parent network at Holy Family much more than my Mom and I. If you're excited about the new direction we're taking the choir, please share this with other parents! Word of mouth referrals always seem to carry weight with things that matter most. You can "like" our new facebook page, as well as share this new website with people you know as well. As always, we are very open to hearing suggestions if we've forgotten about anything--networking through email lists and technology is a whole new animal from simple announcements and bulletins at church! If there is an email list that I didn't refer to or any other way you think would be helpful for us to reach out, please speak up! Thanks, and see you Wednesday! Thank you to all the families who have signed up for the camp on Saturday. We are looking forward to seeing those of you who are returning as well as some new faces as well! Since there seems to have been some confusion about times, we would just like to clarify that the camp begins at 9am sharp! :)
It is important that each child have their own water bottle to stay hydrated throughout the morning. We are excited about the music that we've chosen, and are also looking to touch on some areas of practical instruction on how to properly use the voice, as well as some basics in music reading (both chant and modern notation), among other things. For the parents, we will be hosting a short concert at 12:15pm with a few pieces to give you a taste of the direction we would like to take the choir. Afterwards, we can have a casual chat about the future of the choir for the year. Looking forward to Saturday morning! Hello everyone! With Saturday the 29th quickly approaching, we decided to make an executive decision based on the responses that we have received. Our decision was to move forward with having our initial Day Camp on Saturday, September 29, starting at 9am. I have listed below the families from whom we have confirmations for this coming Saturday.
If you don't see your name on the list and wish for your child[ren] to attend, please contact Mary Beth ([email protected]) or leave a comment here ASAP. Similarly, if something changes that your child will NOT be attending, please let us know as well so we can be prepared with enough copies of the music and enough food to go around! We also strongly recommend that each child have a bottle for water to stay hydrated throughout the morning. We're looking forward to hearing some beautiful voices on Saturday! **Updated** Karels: 1 Lux: 1 Mahon: 3 Morgan: 1 Paprocki: 1 Peck: 1 Riley: 1 Rivard: 2 Swenson: 1(?) Toste: 2 Ullrich: 1 With much anticipated, we eagerly decided to begin our choir year with lots of time on our hands to explore our new ideas: We are excited to include more of the traditions of our Catholic heritage this year by including chant and more sacred motets in our repertoire, as well providing children with the challenge (and the resulting benefits) of singing from music for the first time, instead of just memorizing by rote. Singing in two or three parts is also a goal of ours, but depends on the children and how capable they are of holding their own musical line--however, this is a learnable skill, so even if we can't do it initially, it's not to say that it will never happen!
We had initially planned for a Day Camp of 4 hours, including a light snack, on the morning of Saturday, September 29 from 9:00am-1:00pm. However, we were recently made aware that there is a conflicting homeschool event that same morning, and we don't want to exclude homeschoolers if we can help it! We are exploring the idea of postponing the start of choir until the next week: Saturday, October 6. This would also grant us more flexibility with time...we could do either 9:00am-1:00pm again, OR, pending approval from Holy Family, the camp could go from 1:00pm-4:30, and we could sing some of our new pieces at the 5pm Mass. (In this case, we would make sure that snack would fall well before Mass to not interfere with the Eucharistic Fast) What's your preference:
As before, if you could leave your family name, number of children, and your day/time preference in the comments, we would appreciate it. Thanks! Hello everyone. We are anxious about revamping the choir, and the biggest variable for change is who is available for rehearsals! We are trying to accommodate everyone's schedules, but really want to establish a firm expectation that choristers commit to ALL rehearsals and masses. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances and exceptions, but we feel it's important to state that every voice is important in the choir and is missed!
With that being said, the times we are proposing are:
While I could have set up a survey, that doesn't really give us a whole lot of information on how many children count for each vote, so I think the most ideal way is to simply leave your family name, number of children interested, and your day/time preference. Thanks! | Who are we?
Mary Beth Millner has been a private piano teacher for 35 years and started the children's choir in 1993 to provide a way for children to participate in the Liturgy of the Church. ArchivesMarch 2013 Categories |
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