Over the summer I spent a large amount of time sifting through the high school music library.  I was on a hunt for the “good curriculum.”  Those pieces that make students’ ear perk up.  The pieces that make them wonder what else they haven’t discovered yet.  Curious music was my mission.

I inhaled a lot of dust in my searching, threw out hundreds of disintegrating copies of Mr. Sandman, and welcomed the sight of Britten, Vaughn Williams, and F.Melius Christiansen.  The pride of my pick became the center piece for this winter’s concert.  Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.”  It also gave me some concern.  The piece is typically high end in my mind.  It’s for choirs that are established; they’ve been around the block.

My choir is young and varied in experience.  We are split into thirds of proficiency.  Highly, mid, and low.  With this in mind, for the first three weeks of school, I have focused on tone, flexibility, and diction-oriented warm ups.  We’ve been rounding and lifting the tone all day, every day it seems.  We also leveled out our counting issues, team-composed rhythm and solfege exercises, and hammered out the school song every day.

It all seemed very basic; I was concerned for their general boredom until today.  First I made an announcement, then I handed them the Britten.

Last Friday, the top choir debuted the year through enormous nerves.  Homecoming coronation required them to sing the school song in the dark for the entire high school.  I don’t think they realized just how special they were as a choir until they got my report back to them today.  “You have been noted as the best choir in the past 13 years at this school by an administrator.”  Blown away, confidence through the roof.  Drive out the wazoo.  And that was the tipping point they needed.

With eagerness they grasped at the Britten today and came out with a gorgeous tone.  It was light and flute-like and, best of all, hopeful.  I think they even surprised themselves.  Furthermore, the old English text spurred a vocabulary discussion.  Real interest and intrigue burst out of these lovely high school students!  Curiosity!

Every day now I feel like I owe them something.  I owe it to them to teach well, to be happy, to push them, to find good music, to talk about meaning.  I owe them a real class with real content.  I owe them an environment that fosters learning.  And with that I hope they will learn to follow their hearts and leave signs of beauty behind.

I can’t wait to meet with the newly elected choir cabinet to see where they are really at, what they are really thinking.  Especially since the girls elected President and Vice-President were screaming in their joy all they way down the hall (at the very spectacular choir bulletin board).