Identity + Student Voice & Choice = I Didn't Choose ANY of Our Concert Rep (😳)

Upcoming Collaboration Concerts:

We’re embarking on our 2nd Annual Midwinter Collaboration Concerts and I’m really excited about this series! In case you missed it, we partnered with the Harding Orchestra, Augsburg University and our SA and TB choirs for Concert #1 which featured the world premiere of “My Dad The Mekong/Love Forever”, a bilingual work in Hmong and English, and with Star of the North Chamber Band, Harding Bands and Chamber Choir for Concert #2.

This year we have two exciting concerts - Feb 27th will feature the Helios Chorum (TB), Bella Voce (SA), Harding Orchestra, as well as our new friends from South High School - their Treble Choir and Orchestra! The Orchestras will be doing a side by side performance of Brandenburg Concerto No.5 and a Somali Wedding Dance. The Choirs will be performing “Love is Love” and “We Walk in Love” from the Justice Choir Songbook as well as “Juntos”. All 130 students will be performing “Take What You Need”, a powerful piece by Reena Esmail that features musical interludes built into the piece that serve as a space where community members can come to an open mic and speak.

Our second concert is near and dear to my heart. I was THRILLED when we were chosen as a Minnesota Public Radio Class Notes Residency School. Class Notes schools are partnered with a Class Notes artist (either an ensemble or solo artist) for a series of visits through this residency. Imagine my joy when the group we were partnered with was Border CrosSing! Border CrosSing actually came into my classroom today for our first visit and I was just over the moon to have a group that I love and have dedicated so much time to come into my classroom to collaborate with the other half of my musical heart. We’ll be sharing the stage on March 9th, 2020 at 7:00PM at Harding High School.

All this to say…. students in Concert and Chamber identified that they wanted to have more of a say on what the repertoire was and what this concert in particular looked like. I am very Type A and the thought of setting loose 40 high school students to select repertoire for a concert that involved a visiting guest ensemble comprised of my colleagues was…..terrifying….to say the least. HOWEVER…. student voice and choice is important I told them we’d go for it.

Here’s what we’ve done so far….

Identity Web:

We started by creating “Identity Webs” where I challenged students to highlight some of the identifiers they had. We created a gallery wall on the board and I had the students walk around and jot down what they noticed popped up in several of the webs.

Identity Web

We then went around and noticed what WASN’T on the webs. Students pointed out that we had many things in common - family, religion, culture, student, etc - but lacked identifiers like “hard working”, “positive” or “confident”. We then sat down and created a list of words that reflected our class and students voted on the words that were the most important for them.

Note: I know how to spell “musician” but the student said it with a funny French accent. Hence: “Musishön”

Chamber Choir identified with: Mental Health, Religion and Family.

Concert Choir identified with: Resilient, Supportive, Human

We then split off into groups and students began to research music that would relate to those themes.

Music Selection Guide

Every summer, I make a Rep Planning Guide for the year where I map out my goals for every ensemble and reflect on whether or not I met the goals from the prior year. I then use that document as a running tally for the music I’ve researched or selected for the year, track how much I’ve spent on octavos, jot down cool pieces I find out, etc. I actually showed the document to students to show them how seriously I take the music selection process.

Sample from last year's goals for Bella Voce (S/A Choir)

I also created a Rep Selection Guide for students to navigate J.W. Pepper and begin to select music that fit the theme their group was researching. It was a lesson in research skills - I hadn’t realized students would type “mental health” into Pepper and not think in broader terms. Luckily, we were able to explore broader search terms that yielded more results.

This was an interesting process! It was interesting to have to quantify how I select a piece of music and break it down into attainable steps. I also have several avenues I look into (SBMP, Earthsongs, Cypress Music) before I look on Pepper, but I wanted to give my students a simple way of navigating an endless set of options.

Here’s what they came up:

Chamber Choir:

• Please Stay - Jake Runestad (Mental Health)

• Lift Up My Spirit - Jim Papoulis (Religion)

• Take Me Home - Pentatonix, arr. Emerson (Family)

Concert Choir:

• No Matter Where You Are - Us The Duo (But we modeled it after Tone6’s AMAZING COVER OF THIS PIECE. (Supportive)

• Intro to Fight With Tools - Justice Choir Songbook (Resilient)

  • Side note: we just had a chance to sing this with VocalPoint Chorus and Flobots and students were SO inspired. We’ve added harmonies, we’ve added a round, we’ve added a rap in the middle. it’s going to be killer.

• Dream Keeper, Rollo Dillworth (Human)

Both choir are joining together to sing Tres Cantos Nativos. Border CrosSing will join us on Xicochi Conetzintle and Alma Llanera.

Here’s the thing… Is this my ideal concert program? Not necessarily. That being said, I’m excited that students are excited. I have this idea for an art installation on the windows in front of the auditorium that uses the passion words we created at the start of the school year, and will also include their “I Am…” poems and identity webs. I want the space to reflect THEM - to reflect the words they chose and the music they selected.

I was telling a friend about this and he said something like “I don’t know how you can let them pick your rep. I couldn’t do it” and I replied with “it’s just choir.” Those words have never crossed my mouth - it is not JUST choir. It’s also a language class, an SEL curriculum, a home, a place to build bridges of empathy towards different perspectives, (sometimes) a place to cry, a place to laugh, a place to teach notes and rhythms. But in this case? It’s just choir. It’s about the students, their stories and singing joyfully together. The music is just a vehicle for the students to feel represented and welcomed.

March 9th, 2020. 7:00pm in the Harding Auditorium.

Join us.