We Are the Choir

In April of this year I was chatting with a friend while we waited for our teenagers to finish their midweek activity at church. The previous summer a woman who had directed a children's choir in California had moved into our ward. My friend and I were bemoaning the fact that we didn't have a children's choir nearby that our kids could be part of and wishing that our new friend would start one. On a whim I said, "We could start a choir. You could be the musical director and I could be in charge of choreography and whatever dramatic elements we wanted." We kind of laughed about the possibility and moved on to discuss other things.

A few days later she texted me "I'm actually a bit excited about the idea of putting together a children's music group. Is that something you'd really want to do? If so, let's stew on it a little."

I responded, "I'm game. 😁"

Then life went on and we didn't talk about it again until a month and a half later. That's when she texted and said she wanted us to start the choir. That was the official beginning of our little group. Over the next few weeks we texted and sent Marco Polos back and forth several times a day as we made choices about what the choir would look like. We chose a name, paid a graphic designer to make a logo for us, picked a few songs to start with, and decided on a practice time.

By the beginning of June we not only had a plan, we also had a choir. We had spread the word amongst the moms in both wards that meet in our building. There had been lots of interest and we had about sixteen kids signed up to sing. Our first rehearsal was the first Monday of summer break. We gathered the kids, passed out their music folders, introduced our first song, and sang.

And then my family went out of town for three and a half weeks and missed the next several practices.

We got back into town one day before our first performance.

Thankfully the girls had been practicing as we traveled. With a quick pickup practice the night before, they were ready to jump back in and sing. The kids sang three patriotic songs for a combined ward 4th of July picnic between the two congregations that meet in our building. They did a great job!

Over the summer we kept practicing once a week. The other director had to miss three weeks in a row, so I took over as the music director for that time. When we were both there sometimes we would split the kids up and I would teach the melody in one room while she taught the harmony in another room. We introduced musical terms and taught about stage presence and what to do if you're nervous and don't want to perform. We focused on the learning aspect of the choir, not just how they sounded and what they looked like. Several of the families involved traveled during the summer as well, so we never knew how big a group we would have each week.

As the end of summer neared we knew we needed to pick a night for the kids to perform what they'd been working on. We found a handful of dates that worked for both of us and sent them out to the parents. Thankfully, there was one night that worked for all the singers. That left us with a program to plan out. The kids had learned six songs over the summer, which was great. However, it wasn't quite enough for a concert. We discussed trying to teach them a few more simple songs but decided against that. Instead we invited the kids in the choir to put together solo or small group numbers that they could perform as part of the concert. They were thrilled!

These were the songs the kids learned as a choir, along with their run time.

We had our first official concert a week ago. Since this isn't a business venture we were able to use our church building for our practices and the concert. However, our building is little and doesn't have a stage. We created a performance space by gathering the rolling chalkboards and whiteboards in the building and setting them up behind the kids. We also rolled out a carpet under where the kids would be standing to minimize foot sounds. 

Another dilemma was the volume of the piano. Our pianist is a talented and enthusiastic fifteen year old. He's so enthusiastic that he plays the piano at top volume and the piano that was available to us doesn't have a damper pedal. During our dress rehearsal we discovered that he was drowning out the singers. After some brainstorming, a little internet research, and a trip to Walmart, we were able to dampen the piano a sufficient amount. We stuffed an old mattress topper into the back of the piano and then covered it with a moving blanket. Apparently a moving blanket is essentially the same thing as an acoustic blanket, but significantly less expensive and easier to obtain. I pulled the blanket back to show the padding underneath for this picture, but it was tucked and taped and hidden during the concert.

We met at the church the night before the concert and moved out stacks of extra chairs from the gym to a side classroom. That's also when we quieted the piano. There's a dedicated group of pickleball players that uses the gym most mornings, so we couldn't set anything else up that night. Our plan was to meet the next evening two hours before the concert to set up the stage area and the seating for the audience.

The next morning I got a text from my co-director. She had just gotten a message from one of those pickleball players who knew about the concert. They couldn't play their regular game because a repairman was currently using the space to fix the three sets of floor-to-ceiling accordion doors that divide the gym from the chapel and split the rest of the big room into smaller rooms. According to the message, he wasn't sure that he would be done by our 7pm start time.

I had already been planning to stop by the church that morning to drop something off, so I headed over to chat with the repairman. I found him sitting in the last row of the chapel, looking at the big room and the work ahead of him. I said hello and quickly explained that the room had been double-booked with the repair and the concert. I asked what his plan was so that we could adjust ours if needed. I was very kind and never demanded that he finish his task so we could have the room. When he heard what we needed he said he would fix the back curtain first since that would be the quickest project and was where our makeshift stage would need to be. Then he would move to the more difficult and time-consuming task of fixing the curtain between the gym and the chapel. Thankfully the middle set of curtains didn't need to be touched. He said he might be done by 5pm, but couldn't make any promises. I thanked him and said I would pray that he would have motivation (something he told me he was lacking) and insight as to how to fix the curtains.

When we arrived at 5 o'clock he was gone and the repairs were complete!

One of the moms from the choir had volunteered to organize refreshments. She came to setup a few tables before we got there and decided to set up some of the chairs as well. We were so thankful for her help. It took some of the load off our shoulders. 

We had the room setup in time for our singers to warmup and run through a few numbers before the show. I directed one number, She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, since it was mainly an acting song. The rest of the night I acted as stage manager and crew. I handed instruments (ukulele, drum, violin) when they were needed, moved music stands and chairs, cued our two prerecorded accompaniments, and at one point made sure the mic didn't fall out of it's stand and land on the floor. My co-director actually directed most of the songs. Oh, and I was the page turner for the pianist. Two of our songs were quite long, thirteen and seventeen pages each.

The order of songs was as follows:

Colonel Bogey's (You're a Grand Old Flag) - a choir number that included a kazoo section

Inchworm - a choir number, from the movie Hans Christian Andersen

Big Rock Candy Mountain - a fun solo from a young woman in the choir who is one of our smiliest singers and also has a giant voice

Simple Gift - a beautiful cello solo by one of the young men in the choir

This Land Is Your Land - a choir song accompanied by one of our singers on the ukulele

She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain - the choir song that I directed, Phoebe played percussion for comedic effect during one verse

How Far I'll Go - a trio from a set of sisters

Wellerman - a sea shanty sung by two brothers and accompanied by a hand drum

When I Grow Up - one of our more ambitious choir numbers, it had lots of syncopation, Phoebe was one of the soloists!

Popular - a great solo by one of Sophie's best friends, she has a big, beautiful voice

Musette - a lovely violin solo from another young man in the choir

Tomorrow - a fantastic duet by Sophie and that same friend who sang Popular

A Million Dream - the choir's grand finale, Sophie was a soloist on this song!

The kids did a fantastic job! They smiled and sang, they remembered to sit and stand quietly during the small group numbers, they made it to the microphone on time for each of their solos. It was a successful first concert!

And now we're planning for Christmas.

We were so focused the night of the concert that we failed to take a group picture. But we did get one after our dress rehearsal (minus the actual official choir shirts so they would stay clean for the concert) a few days before. We're missing three of our singers here, and Sophie is a little hidden, but this is most of the group!