Yolo Youth Choir Spring Session 2012 is cancelled due to insufficient enrollment.
Look for more Yolo Youth Choir offerings in Fall 2012!
Here is my mission for Yolo Youth Choir:
A Fun, Safe, Creative Environment
As a director, I celebrate the ability of children to have fun, to make a game out of work, and to enjoy each other’s company. While I consistently foster the respect, structure, and emotional safety that help a learning community thrive, I also make space for the creativity, diversity, and personal expression that bring us a rich, collaborative experience every time we come together to sing. Some arrangements are developed in process with the singers, providing the opportunity to maximize use of skills in the group, and creating a dynamic, interactive rehearsal process. Performances may incorporate more than just standing and singing-- choreographic movement, spoken word, theatrical business, accompaniment enhanced by musicians from within the group, jokes or personal stories are a few elements that can keep audiences guessing and our performers engaged.
Musical Education
Kids love to learn and grow in their mastery as performers and musicians. Through careful preparation, I offer singers the satisfaction of presenting their best for audiences. I also empower them as singer-musicians with expanding vocal and musical skills. Every rehearsal includes warm-ups, games, and challenges that develop healthy vocal technique, ear training, and musicianship. The ensemble experience also provides a forum for encouraging young musicians to listen, not just to themselves, but to their neighbors and the group choral sound. Above all, singers learn that music provides a pleasurable channel for their vibrant energy, their hopes and dreams, and their silliness, too. Yolo Youth Choir is a place for kids to sing their hearts out.
Varied Repertoire
Our songs come from many sources: world music, music of many faith traditions, contemporary children's music, current pop music, oldies, folk songs, and original music by Laura Sandage or other local songwriters-- even by the kids themselves! Music is age appropriate, fun, never stuffy, and often accompanied by guitar instead of piano, making it easier for the group to perform in non-traditional, informal settings.
Singing Out in the Community
I hope that every rehearsal will bring joy into the lives of my singers and their families, but I also want to bring that joy further out into the community. When the Yolo Youth Choir performs for local community events or end of season concerts, I prepare the group to bring spirited voices with positive messages related to core human values, our relationship to the natural world, and hopes for the future world today's kids want to create.
A Typical Rehearsal May Include...
--Group energy warm-ups such as circle games, improv exercises, or theater games
--Physical warm ups such as stretches, breathing exercises, and tongue twisters
--Vocal warm-ups such as vocalises
--Ear training activities using a numbered scale system
--Rhythmic development with clapping or rhythmic vocalization patterns
--Skill-building songs or musical games
--Performance repertoire being learned and arranged completely by ear
--Performance repertoire being learned with the aid of written musical scores
--Performance repertoire that is already learned being fine-tuned or refreshed
--Rehearsal of performance skills such as bowing, changing formations, or choreography