Sigma Alpha Iota

Sai-natiOnal.ORg SummER 2014 PAN PIPES 3 By Stephanie Riley W hen I first took on my current high school teaching position, I created a series of goals for my first, second, third, and fih years. I knew I was walking into a group of great students who were eager to try new things, and weren't terribly afraid of doing so -- a rare combination! In order to determine what my students wanted to learn from chorus this year, I polled them to learn what their interests were. Once the results were in, I set out to create some ambitious goals that would incorporate those interests, along with some music education essentials. Goals for my first and second years included increasing sight reading abilities, exploration of different musical genres outside of pop and gospel music, and developing student leadership via student lead sectional rehearsals. e main goal for the third year was to increase membership, especially male membership, of the choir. Achieving this goal will prove to be critical in the long run, as the success of the entire five year project hinged on the completion of the third year goal. However, with some hard work by both the choir and me, these ambitious goals were falling into place early. e primary goal for the fih year was to have the students perform a reasonably challenging, yet obtainable, masterwork with an orchestra. It occurred to me when I was student teaching that most high school students don't get the chance to do either of these things. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity in college to learn and perform a masterwork each year, and wanted to give my students the same chance. I had significantly increased my male membership at this point in time, and my students were truly improving their reading capabilities and musicianship. However, I knew I needed to add an element to truly make this a successful endeavor for us all, so that the students would walk away knowing that they had just participated in a truly amazing experience. When I moved to Cape Cod six years ago, I immediately got involved with a local community choir called e Chatham Chorale. At the time I joined the choir, I was teaching elementary music in my district. I knew that if I didn't continue singing, I would lose a part of my musicianship that I had worked so hard for in college. I also knew that singing with such an active and ambitious group would keep me current in my profession. It hit me one day aer rehearsal that in order to accomplish the final goal, I should tap into this musical resource that had been directly in front of me the whole time. I was well into brainstorming my plan the previous spring, when I shared my goals with Sara Fachada, a good friend and colleague. As I was explaining how I would like to involve willing chorale members (particularly the men!), we looked at each other, and immediately knew we were going to work on this as a joint project. e original plan was for me to conduct the work, as my budget was quite literally non- existent. However, when Sara and I were discussing the project with Dr. Ronald Sherwin (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), he immediately volunteered to conduct pro bono. As an added bonus, his wife would be playing keyboard, and his choral students from UMass Dartmouth would also be joining us. Dr. Sherwin also agreed to speak to the members of his church choir, to see if any of them had interest in participating. I was completely overwhelmed with how well this project was coming together. In order to measure the success of the five year goal plan, I decided to create a list that simply outlined goal we were trying to achieve. Experience success • Feel proud and accomplished • Develop understanding about how hard • work and team work can create something bigger than themselves Experience singing in a mass choir • Experience performing with an orchestral • accompaniment Experience singing in a vocally balanced • choir Develop student leadership through student- • led sectionals Sing with members of the community, • including church members and collegiate students so they can learn that their singing career can continue beyond high school, regardless of their professional path in life Now that our goals were stated, and a plan was in place, we had a huge decision to make. Which piece were we going to perform? In our minds, the choice was fairly simple - Gabriel Faure's Requiem. is piece was such a great fit for many reasons. ere are many different moments that catch even a novice musician's ear, and the beauty of the piece easily holds the attention of high school students. e piece would have to be performed in Latin which is a language that even the newest singer could grab hold of quickly. ere are 5 pure vowels, and the enunciation is easy to learn. e form of the piece is so classically structured that younger singers could navigate their way around the piece easily while learning it, with just the perfect number of "deviations" to challenge them in technicality and in musicianship. With so many different students and community members participating in this performance, we needed a way to assist them all with rehearsing their parts. Luckily, there is a fantastic resource out there called Cyberbass, which is located at cyberbass.org. For those who aren't familiar with Cyberbass, it's a website that houses a compilation of many classical choral works set in midi format. Singers can choose the song they'd like to work on, listen to a midi file of their part alone for personal rehearsal purposes, and then listen and sing with all four choral parts accompanied by the orchestral reduction. Not only was this resource great for the community members who joined us, this allowed for me to send my students out to do sectionals. e students could speed up or slow down their individual part, pause and go back to a section that was giving them trouble, and even practice at home. Of course, as with any website or app, there's always room for improvement. Masterworks Not Just for the Masters MusIc Medley MEDLEY continued on page 4

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