Lift Every Voice and Sing

Today's major activity included me needing to quickly learn all this music.

My brain is tired.

Wakey Wakey

"Mom, I have a song for you. Can you put it on the blog?"

Choose to Serve the Lord

A new year means a new course of study at church and home. This year we're studying the Old Testament. In primary we're focusing on the heroes we'll read about. To reflect that, we switched out our Doctrine & Covenants bulletin board from last year and put up pictures of people and places the kids will be learning about this year. We plan to add a banner at the bottom that says "I will choose to serve the Lord," which goes along with a song we're learning. I love the way it turned out!

Be the One They Look Up To

Cooper spent Wednesday through Saturday of last week camping with the Young Men from our Stake.

They were divided into three groups based on activities: rock climbing, biking, and hiking/fishing. Cooper wanted to join the rock climbing group (that was comprised of older boys), but there was a younger boy in our congregation that was concerned about being on his own. Cooper and three of the other older YM signed up for the hiking/fishing group so he wouldn't be alone.

Those older boys were all given mentor roles. This included having Cooper and his friends teach the younger boys how to fish.

Did Cooper know how to before last week?

Not really.

He'd only been once, but that didn't stop him from demonstrating how to cast his line.

This same group of boys helped give a devotional the first night of camp. They'd been given the assignment a few weeks in advance and decided to write a song and perform it for all the YM. Over the last few weeks these four boys have gotten together several times to work on their song. I don't know many teenage boys that use their free time to write songs about Jesus with their friends, but that's exactly what they did. I've only heard a snippet of the song, but one of the dads who went on the camping trip told us that he overheard several of the younger boys sing the song over the next few days of camp.

Part of Cooper's camp experience included visiting Gettysburg. The leaders shared this picture with the parents. We had to really zoom in to find Cooper. He's in the red shirt in the middle in the picture below.

Cooper had a wonderful time and came home with only a little sunburn from the white water rafting they did on the last day, an improvement over last year's all-over sunburn.

It's Time to Be the Hero

Have you heard of Maycember? It's a phenomenon that exists in our household. May, much like December, is full of end of the year (school year) activities, including concerts.

For the final concert of the year, the middle school chorus joins with the high school chorus. This was nice for us because it combined two concerts into one: Cooper sang with the high school concert choir and Phoebe sang with the middle school chorus.

Phoebe served as the chorus vice-president this year. That means she got to help announce the songs her choir performed. They also presented their director with a bouquet of flowers.

They sounded great. I especially loved when they sang "Homeward Bound."

The concert choir had an awesome entrance through the audience. Cooper is the eighth person in this line walking up to the stage.

This is a large choir and they sounded wonderful!

Towards the end of the evening, the directors handed out awards. Phoebe was one of two middle schoolers to be given an award. She earned it for her leadership and service to the choir. When her name was called she was surprised and kind of flustered. She looked at me and asked if she should go up to the stage. I said yes and she went up and received her award.

And then she prepared to sing her solo! The middle school and high school choirs joined forces and sang "Hero" by a composer who goes by the handle Pinkzebra. One soloist from each school was picked to open the song and Phoebe was floored when she got the solo! She sounded lovely!

At this point after the concert, Cooper and Sophie were both off with friends, otherwise they would have been in this picture too.

It was a long (at least two hours) but wonderful concert. I am so thankful that we live in a school district that values musical education so highly. And I love that my kids get to contribute to that music!

Waving Through Another Window

The final video I'm going to share from the concert is from Sophie. This, Waving Through a Window from Dear Evan Hansen, is the same song she sang for her school talent show. But instead of the 90 second version, this is the whole song. Bryan bumped the key up a few steps so that it fell a little more comfortably for her.

What Is This Feeling?

Sophie and her friend Gemma had a lot of fun preparing What Is This Feeling? for the concert. They're pretty well matched vocally since they're both such strong singers. The acting was a fun bonus for both of them.

Fun fact: there's a chance this movie won't work. When I uploaded it to YouTube I got a warning that it might not be visible in all territories. So, if you can't see it, let me know. 

Princess Problems

Phoebe's friend Isaac really wanted to sing a duet with her. She's still growing in her comfort level with singing by herself in front of other people, so she was apprehensive. We saw the new Snow White movie when it came out in theaters (so cute!) and this song was fresh on my mind. I suggested it since most of the singing falls to him, but there's still enough for her that it counts as a duet. I love the acting that they got to do with this one. And I think they both sound wonderful.

Hush, Little Baby

Topher was adamant that he do a solo at our Spring Season kids choir concert. Cooper kindly joined him on guitar. Topher got an on-the-spot lesson that everyone makes mistakes and that it's okay to start over. I think they did a great job.

Sing, Sing a Song

Several weeks ago, Sophie's school chorus teacher invited all the kids to audition for the Pennsylvania Music Educators District Ten Elementary Songfest. Sophie was one of twelves kids picked from her school. They've had extra practices to learn the music and prepare for their concert, which happened last Friday evening.

On Thursday night Sophie told us that, after another audition, she'd been picked to represent her school and audition for one of two solos available at the concert. She, her eleven classmates, and their chorus teacher took a school bus to the host school on Friday morning and spent the whole day practicing with the entire group, two-hundred fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, and their guest director. Because she doesn't have a cell phone, we didn't know how the day was going, including how the audition for the solo had gone.

Bryan took a picture of me taking a picture of our family at the concert. His picture was better.

We arrived a little after 6:30 for the 7:00 concert. The first time we saw Sophie was when she walked in to take her place with the rest of the group. The concert was relatively short, only six songs. They did a great job. There was one song that had arm movements and many of the kids looked like they were just marking the choreography, kind of bored and trying to get through it. Sophie performed each move with intention and energy. It made such a difference.

As we neared the final song, my heart started to pound. I couldn't figure out if I was nervous that she didn't get the solo, or nervous that she did. When they finished the penultimate number the director went to the microphone and announced that their last song, This Is Me from The Greatest Showman, would feature two soloist. And then she announced their names.

Sophie was the first soloist! She started the whole song and sang it beautifully. I was so proud of her that I felt happy tears running down my face.

Afterward the parents from each school gathered at a designated spot in the theatre. I got to meet some of the moms of Sophie's friends. One of them told me that her daughter had been rooting for Sophie, that she knew Sophie would get the solo. I was concerned there might be some hurt feelings that Sophie got the solo, but everyone was kind and complimentary. She has a sweet group of friends that are in the musical and chorus together. I love that they were so supportive.

On the way home, Sophie told us that she'd gone through a few more rounds of auditions during that long rehearsal day. She hadn't known she had the solo until around 5:30, not too long before the concert started.

I love that she's getting these musical opportunities!

Waving Through a Window

Sophie performed in her school's talent show tonight. She was the twenty-fourth act out of thirty-three performances. When her name was announced the audience went wild. It was the loudest reception anyone got. I thought maybe that was my mom bias, but everyone else in the family agreed. Maybe we're all biased? She did a fantastic job and got an even bigger round of applause when she finished.

The only down side is that for some reason the video Bryan took didn't actually record. He was so disappointed. Sophie was willing to try again. When we got home she sang it, just so we could record it. The music should have been louder, but we didn't realize that until we listened to the recording on the computer and Sophie was busy getting ready for bed. So this is an approximation of what her performance sounded like.

I Love You

Topher and I read a few Valentine's Day books before school today. I asked Topher if he could read this one to me. It's a rebus book, so many of the words were in picture form. When he got to the end the whole thing was written in words, sans pictures. He started to sing it to a tune that he made up on the fly and I asked if I could make a video.

With Topher's blessing, here's your singing valentine!

Somewhere In My Memory

Since 2019 (with the exceptions of 2020 when it didn't happen and 2021 when we were still at home, though I did consult on that one from a distance) I've been heavily involved with organizing an interfaith Christmas concert. When our congregation boundaries were redrawn in June, one of the things I mourned was not being part of this concert. Then I remembered that our children's choir would likely sing at it, so I would at least be part of it in that way. It was a small consolation.

In September I talked with my Bishop and he agreed that our new ward should still participate. I was given the task of putting together a musical number to take to the concert from our new unit. Not too long after that I was asked to join a Zoom meeting with the fellow in charge of the concert. My kid choir co-director was on the call too, so we assumed he would be telling us how many songs to prepare. Nope. The meeting was short and consisted of him telling us he was too busy to do the concert (he was trying to finish his dissertation) and apologetically asking if we would take over. We both said yes.

Among the many (many many many) things I've needed to organize this season, this has probably been the biggest. The concert included members from a Lutheran congregation and a Messianic Jewish synagogue, two wards from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (that's us), a harpist and her tenor husband, and our children's choir. There were lots of texts and meetings and rehearsals and Marco Polos involved in the planning. 

Here's our early Saturday morning dress rehearsal with the kids.

The concert was scheduled for the evening of December 15. When our former Bishop passed away we were prepared to postpone if needed. We didn't have to, but the memorial on Saturday and the concert on Sunday made for a very long weekend. When Bryan and I went over the schedule for those two days he said, "So it's basically one long day." Yep.

After some eleventh hour drama, the concert came together beautifully. The songs were wonderful. If I'd thought about it I would have asked someone to record the song I directed from my ward, a triple quartet that sang Good Christian Men, but it didn't occur to me. It was lovely. The music the Rabbi brought from his synagogue was amazing and had us all standing and clapping. Both the Rabbi and the music leader from the Lutheran church told us afterward how wonderful the evening was and how much they enjoyed sharing our beliefs with each other.

Bryan did think to record the song I directed from our little choir. Actually, it's grown each season, so I guess it's not so little anymore. Cooper joined us for Christmas, along with two other young men, so we could add a baritone line. I think this is the best they've ever sung it.

It was a spiritually uplifting night of music and it was just what I hoped it would be.

Yesterday we took these kids to perform their Christmas songs, plus several group sing-alongs, at a retirement home. We thought it was an appropriate way to do service on the Sabbath. They did a wonderful job. 

And with that, our extremely full musical season is done.

The Wizard and I

We were invited to a free showing of Wicked on Monday with some friends, so we went! We loved it and have all been singing the songs since we saw it. Topher sang along (quietly) with a few of the songs during the movie. It is rated PG-13 and I tried to find out in advance why it got its rating without reading any spoilers. That was tricky. I chose to distract Topher during one short scene in the beginning and there's a very flirtatious character, but I'm not sure that either of those things earned the rating. There's also a scene with the flying monkeys that's pretty intense, but that was about it.

And yes, I wore green on purpose.

Primary Program: Accomplished

Yesterday was the primary program. 

I took this picture the night before to document some of our preparations. The folders held scripts, one for each adult that assisted, plus one for the podium. The index cards became name cards that I taped to the benches so all the kids and grownups would know exactly where to sit on the stand. Every kid had a primary program buddy, another primary kid to sit with. We paired a big kid with each little kid to facilitate reverence and tried to split up the busiest, chattiest children. We also asked the Bishopric to sit on the stand among the primary kids. They, along with our three primary teachers that were in town (which included Bryan), helped the kids stay calm while they waited for their turns to speak and sing.

All nineteen of our active primary kids were there and eighteen of them spoke their part clearly into the microphone. Our youngest and littlest sunbeam let me pick him up and hold him up to the microphone while I said his line clearly and he repeated in a low mumbly voice, "I don't want to." His older sister has an intense case of stage fright. We had a back-up plan for her part in case she wasn't up to delivering it. But she didn't need the back-up plan! She said her part into the microphone and did a great job!

I had taught all the kids the sign language to The Church of Jesus Christ. We practiced it for three months. Most of them did it last week at our final practice. Then almost all of them forgot it yesterday. A friend told me how much she enjoyed watching Sophie's sign language solo. Well done Sophie for remembering the sign language!

Sophie also had an official solo. The did a beautiful job singing the second verse of We'll Bring the World His Truth. This was her last primary program since she's turning eleven before the year ends. She was feeling kind of melancholy about that. Her solo was for her benefit, but also for mine. I realized I didn't have time to teach all three verses of that song to the primary kids. So instead I taught them the first and third verses and asked Sophie to take care of the middle verse. I'll miss her lovely singing voice and thoughtful responses next year when she's in Young Women.

I said that all nineteen of our primary kids were there, and that's true, but we actually had twenty-one kids participate in the program. There's a sweet family that started bringing their ten-year-old son and six-year-old daughter to primary in August. I never saw them in Sacrament meeting and couldn't find them in the ward directory. Someone had told me that Egyptian was their first language and that they were in another ward in the Stake. Someone else told me that they traveled between Virginia and Pennsylvania for work. The mom speaks very little English, so most of my communicating was with the dad. Even then, I didn't know much about them. I just happily welcomed the kids each Sunday and said hello to the parents when they came to take the kids home.

At the end of our second practice last week, the dad came up to me and asked what time he should have the kids there for the primary program. I told him I was so happy they could be there and gave him the time. Then I asked the kids if they wanted to have speaking parts also. They both said yes and we talked about a person from the Book of Mormon that they would want to talk about. The dad gave me his name and number so I could text him the parts during the week. Those were the only lines I wrote for the program, all the other kids wrote their own parts with the help of prompts. I felt that in this case, these kids would need a little more help.

They came yesterday, nervous but excited. Their dad told me that they travel for his job (I think he's a translator, but I'm not certain) so they've never been able to be in a primary program before. This was their first time. The kids both did a great job. The parents were beaming while watching their kids. That was one of the sweetest parts of the day for me.

Overall, I think it was a success. And I'm already planning for next year.

The Magic of Childhood

Our third full season of Valley Children's Voices started rehearsals in June. We practiced nearly every Monday all summer, which was tricky because the other director and I both had to travel, so some duty juggling was involved. All that work culminated in our concert Friday night.

A few moms came early on Friday morning and helped us set up. It usually takes us hours to do this, but with two extra sets of hands the work was done in just over an hour.

Call time was 5:30 for the 7:00 show. As soon as everyone was there we gathered for a picture in our brand new, much nicer (thanks to a choir mom who offered to use her Cricut to make our logo look awesome) shirts. One of our newest singers has terrible stage fright and only stayed in front of the audience for the first minute or so of the concert. I'm extra thankful for this picture that shows everyone, whether they sang or not.

Our theme was The Magic of Childhood. We picked the big choir numbers and the kids picked their own solos and small group numbers. This was our set:

“Everything Is Awesome” - full choir

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” - solo, ukulele accompaniment by me

“Good Day” - solo

“Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?” - younger choir

“Do Re Mi” - cello and two violins

“What a Wonderful World” - full choir, ukulele accompaniment by Sophie and me

“The Girl I Mean to Be” - Phoebe's solo!

“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” - small group

“Wake Me Up” - full choir

“For a Moment” - duet

“Naughty” - Sophie's solo!

“Pure Imagination” - older choir

“On the Steps of the Palace” - solo

“A-B-See-Ya Later” - solo

Folk Tunes Medley - full choir

I directed "Everything Is Awesome" and "Oh, What Do You Do In the Summertime?" "Everything Is Awesome" felt like a run-away train during many of our rehearsals. It finally came together and the performance at the concert was the best they'd ever done it. "Summertime" was fun and sweet and the littlest members of our choir (the five to seven year-olds) did a great job.

I had taught "What a Wonderful World" to the kids and planned to direct it for the concert. But the young singer that was going to join Sophie on the ukulele ran out of time to prepare. (She played the violin for two of the songs, so she was busy preparing, there just wasn't enough time for this song too.) A week before the concert I handed directorial duties over to my co-director and switched to the ukulele instead. I think it turned out well.

Phoebe both really wanted to do a solo and really didn't want to do a solo. She stressed and was super anxious and wasn't sure she would actually do it right up until the moment she started singing. She did a great job! This took so much courage and when she sang you couldn't tell that the lead up had been so traumatic.

Sophie took a lot more initiative in preparing for this solo than she has in the past. She rehearsed beforehand and made sure she was ready, which I very much appreciated. She also did a great job!

In addition to directing two numbers and accompanying two numbers, I was in charge of pushing play on the accompaniment tracks for seven other songs. I'm so thankful to Bryan for gathering all those tracks and putting them into a single file. This helped the whole evening run more smoothly. Directing, accompanying, and stage managing all in one concert is maybe too much for one person. I'm glad he helped lift that load. He was also our videographer for the evening.

The kids were wonderful! They've improved since we started last summer and have gained confidence. Two of the kids who were too shy to do more than sing with the group said they were ready for more this time. One of them was part of a small group number and the other sang a solo in one of the choir songs! It makes me so happy to see them grow and improve.

And now we need to figure out what we're doing for Christmas.

Soporific

Topher: (while driving home from the library yesterday) Mom, sometimes I go deaf. And sometimes, I go blind.

Me: (glancing at Phoebe in the passenger seat only to discover she's just as confused by his statement as I am) Oh? Does this happen at specific times?

Topher: Yes.

Me: When?

Topher: I never hear the end of Moon Song or Mockingbird.

For context, those are his favorite bedtime songs. Based on what he said, I guess they're pretty effective.

The Ukulele Makes Me Happy

Sophie and I performed in a Ukulele Orchestra concert last night. The performance included us singing a duet of I Don't Want to Live on the Moon. I love that this is something she and I can share.

Performance Progress

Tonight we attended the Theatre Showcase for the high school. For most of his life Peter has had terrible stage fright. Giving talks in church was a challenge, as was reciting poems or giving presentations in school. Over the last two years of doing theatre at the high school, his willingness to perform in front of a group has grown. At last year's showcase he sang a solo line of a song. At tonight's showcase he performed an entire song by himself. He sang Arabian Nights from the live action version of Aladdin. And he did a good job!

He's come a long way.

Sweet Water

Sophie had her last concert of the school year last week. Forty-six students auditioned for solos or small group parts. There were two trios, two duets, and four short solos. Sophie was selected to be one of the soloists! I'm so pleased that her chorus director recognized Sophie's vocal ability.

The theme for the concert was water, so the kids were invited to wear blue. The songs were all great, but this first soloist was my favorite.

Well done, Sophie!