See you in...October?

It's hard to believe today is the last day of September already.  We are certainly off to a full-speed ahead journey into great music this fall.

Symphonic Choir classes have been busy preparing "Song of Democracy" and movements from Carmina Burana for performances in October.  Members of the North Hills Singers who are also a part of Symphonic Choir will join with the Alumni Choir this weekend to fill out the sound on pieces like "Song of Democracy."  We are certainly feeling a sense of accomplishment that we've tackled this 32-page choral work in just about a month.  Fortunately for Symphonic Choir, their performance isn't until the 3rd week of October, so we have time to really dig into the music and step our performance up a notch.

Women's Choir had a fantastic first combined rehearsal last week after school.  We're already ahead of where the group was last year, so thank you to the sophomore and junior members of the choir who are helping the new members to hear 3-part harmonies.  We get a chance to show what we've learned as well as learn from high school, collegiate, and community choirs at the Women's Choral Festival on November 9th.  So far, we've gotten almost performance-ready a Hebrew folk song, American folk song, and gospel selection.

We also heard from River City Brass Band what we will be performing with them at their holiday concert on December 5th.  They are having a medley of carols arranged for them and us, and we will begin learning it as soon as the composer finishes working on it!  We've been given a preview of what has been written so far, and it will be filled with well-known Christmas carols.  The full combined high school choir will participate in this concert.

Of course, top on this week's focus is alumni...and not just our Alumni Choir event on Friday and Saturday, but also we expect to see class of 2012 alumnus Chris Jamison on NBC's The Voice this week.  And we're pretty confident he'll be chosen and seen on future episodes.  Check it out tonight at 8:00!  

As for Alumni Choir - I'm very much looking forward to bringing this group of 80 or so North Hills Choir alumni together to share in memories and to make music together for the first time on Saturday.  The interactions on Facebook and through e-mail have been wonderful...hearing about the choirs of the 50s, 60s and 70s, the trips, the awards, the directors.  It's all inspirational and makes me very proud to be a part of this tradition of excellence in music at NH.  Can't wait to hear what we all sound like together!  Hopefully this will be another new tradition that we do every 4 or 5 years.

Thank you to our amazing Choral Parents Association who are jumping in to help with details for the alumni event in addition to all they normally do chairing fundraisers, organizing the madrigal dinner and cabaret night.  We have a great support system to make our students shine.  Looking forward to reporting back next month after several of these performances have happened!

Happy Fall/October everyone.