A Message from Laura Johnson: 

The St. Charles Singers Sing! Workshop for Teens is an event that happens every summer.  I am the director for this 1-day workshop and I’m hoping you will consider encouraging your students to attend this summer. I’ve attached a flyer for you to look at and possibly send to your students. This workshop is a 1-day “camp” experience for high school singers (students who have completed 8th grade through those who have completed their senior year) that includes small ensemble singing and solo coaching, if desired.  I have seen how students have bonded with students outside of their schools through this singing experience and how fulfilled they feel at the end of this day.  


The date of the workshop is Thursday, July 21, 2022.  The day will begin at 9:00 a.m. and end at 6:15 p.m. with a free concert for friends and family.  The cost is $70 for the workshop (the price goes up to $80 after June 1).  Optional solo coaching is $25.  Sing! is held at Baker United Methodist Church in St. Charles, IL.  
​
On the day of Sing!, singers will gather together with games and a good warm-up.  They will then move on to small ensemble work with their director who will teach 2-3 pieces.  Later, the small ensembles will combine to form one large ensemble and will rehearse 2-3 more pieces.

Students may also choose solo coaching.  They will bring a piece of solo music and one of our coaches will work with them, giving them vocal suggestions. 

The directors of all of the ensembles are renowned throughout the Chicagoland area and might be colleagues that you know:

Bryan Kunstman, choir director at Kaneland High School
Monica Bertrand, choir director at St. Charles East High School
Laura Johnson, choir director at Glenbard North High School
Michael Thoms, Professional Choral Musician
Jen Gingrich, Professional Choral Musician

All of these directors are veteran choral directors and know the Sing! program well.  They know how to make the time fun for the singers and how to give the singers a musical experience.  I’ve also been a director for this program in the past and I strongly believe in the value of this unique program.  

1.  Most students don’t get a chance to work with their choirs during the summer and this workshop gives them the singing “boost” that they truly are looking for.
2.  This program is only one day, unlike other summer music camps.  Since students don’t always have the ability to be gone from jobs and activities for a week, this workshop fits their schedules well.
3.  It’s affordable.  Most week-long camps are quite expensive.  And, seniors don’t feel like they are spending a large amount of their valuable college money for a camp.  If a student would like to attend, but truly can’t afford the cost, we offer full and half scholarships.  
4.  Solo coaching is also available for an additional cost.  Students can work one-on-one with an expert in solo singing.

If your students are interested in participating in Sing!, please have them scan the QR code on the flyer, or they can go to stcharlessingers.com and click on the Sing! tab.  They can sign up immediately!

Thank you so much for spreading the word!  If you or your students have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this email or through the web site.  I wish you the best in our remaining weeks of school!

Laura Johnson
Sing! Workshop for Teens Director

Here are the placements for the 2021-22 choirs. As always, I make my assignments based on making five viable choirs. This year it looks like we'll have five choirs of around 26-28 students each. 

We don't have 'auditions', per se. I make placements based on what I have seen from the students over the course of the year. Students who wish for higher choirs can always do more advanced music theory or sight-reading over the next school year. That often lets me know who is really trying to get even better, and who is content to just enjoy a less challenging class where they can make music! In the few instances where I need additional information before making a decision, I have asked those students to individually complete additional work for me. 

The 2021-22 choirs will be: 

• Varied ability levels: 
  • Chorale (students grades 9-11, only Soprano or Alto) 
  • Mixed Chorale (9-12 grades, any voice range)  
• Intermediate
  • Varsity (10-12 grades), during 2021-22, this group will only be Sopranos & Altos.
• Advanced
  • Treble Choir (Students 10-12, only Soprano or Alto)
  • Chamber Singers (Students 10-12, any voice range

Hello, students and parents! 

I apologize for the delay on forming show choir plans - I had been trying to find a stable enough break in the changing plans to establish a solid plan, but I'm really quickly realizing that this situation is going to be continually changing and our best option is just to roll with things as we go along and continue to adapt our plan as best we can with SAFETY at the forefront of every decision we make. 

For this year, I would like to make show choir available to everyone. None of us are going to need to be worried about the pressures of competition or anything like that, so I want to use this year to really try to allow as many students to be involved as would like to be involved. Because of this, my initial plan was to just have 1 large group of all show choir students, assuming we were going to be virtual all year. However, now that we are able to have rehearsals (these are NOT going to be 'normal' rehearsals... more on that in a moment) in person, we do need to keep the number of students per group under control. So, before I make the decision of whether to split into Legacy and Swingsingers again, I need to know how many students are planning to be involved in show choir this year. If we only end up with 30 interested students, we will just have one group, but if there are more like 70 for instance, we will absolutely split.

During rehearsals: we are going to try to have in-person rehearsals when and where we can - if it is SAFE. Rehearsals outdoors are doable until it gets too cold, and then we can use larger spaces and MASKS ON with no singing indoors to socially distantly work on choreography and teambuilding. We will hold vocal rehearsals when we can outdoors, and virtually on Zoom when being outdoors is not an option. 

I want to say thank you to all the students and parents that participated in the surveys I sent to returning students. When reading the answers, particularly to "why are you interested in participating in show choir again?" I was so moved to read that almost every single student mentioned missing the family atmosphere of show choir. I know that everything is going to look a lot different for the Batavia Show Choirs this year, but we are still a family, and we can still have each others' backs and build and strengthen a community, even over Zoom, or spread out in a parking lot with masks on. 

So, I would like to schedule an informational Zoom meeting for students and parents on Monday, October 19th at 7PM. I will get a headcount of students planning to participate this year, give information about 'auditions' for the season, and be available to answer questions from everyone. We will get the audition process rolling next week, and will get to rehearsing and building our show choir family! 

Please feel free to reach out with any questions ahead of time, or just make a note to ask them in the Zoom meeting, as others may have the same question. 
Hope to see you all then! 

Melissa O'Neill
--
Melissa O'Neill
Director - Swingsingers, Legacy
Batavia High School

PS: The link to the Zoom call is posted in Google Classroom for all choir students, and in the email sent home. If you would like to have it sent to you, please email peter.barsch@bps101.net or melmoneill@gmail.com.

Hi Everyone!

I'm sorry that I can't yet give you final decisions about what everything will look like since what I am able to do will be affected by the numbers of in-person students. I can tell you a little about what I'm planning, however.

Regarding the choir class, I do not believe that it is safe for us to be singing full choir songs together in the classroom as usual. We will still be singing individually or in smaller groups, but I'm happy to say that I believe that our music team has new ways to explore the music education standards that are exciting and engaging. I'm very excited about a suite of software (accessible through Chromebooks) that we will be using to make music together. I'm trying to structure things in such a way that if we are in class or if we are all locked down again, we should still be able to do the same things. 

We won't just be doing 90 minutes of Music Theory every day; while we will still reinforce the skills we learned before, we will be adding elements of composition/songwriting, music creation with Digital Audio Workstation software, etc. 

I'm hopeful that since I'm structuring things this way, I will be allowed to fully involve remote learners in this curriculum as well. I can't promise that, however. It is possible that new guidelines will mean that students electing to do remote learning will not be included in these activities. Please know that I will be advocating for our remote learners, and doing my best to help them grow musically. 

Chromatics and show choir will be largely virtual as well. Students interested in show choir should see this note from Miss O'Neill. 

Please know that I completely understand how difficult it is to choose between in-person or remote learning without full information about what will be done. I understand how tough this decision can be; Mrs. Barsch and I are still deciding what we are  going to do with our 7th & 8th-grade children.

Please feel free to reach out to me by email at peter.barsch@bps101.net and I will do my best to answer any questions you may have.