Week Two!

We are off to a great start! Many thanks to all of you for bringing so much enthusiasm and energy to the first week of school. This week is all about hearing people and getting everyone into an assigned section. If singing in front of people is something you don't want to do, just come see me or send me an email and we can do it outside of class. Here's a little checklist of what you should have done by now:

1) Sent me an email at GunnChoir@aol.com with the subject "Choir Info". I will then send you an online form for the data base. It only takes just a minute.

2) If you joined after the first day, make sure you have your picture taken for the choir members info page (coming soon) and fill out a personnel info sheet.

3) Copied all of the performance dates and trip dates into your calendar!!

Auditions for Chamber Singers is tonight at 6:30 PM. You must be a member of the Concert Choir to audition. I am really looking forward to seeing who is going to be part of that group this year. 

For those of you who have been struggling with the lip trill exercise, here is Seth Riggs, a very famous teacher in LA, explaining the exercises. There is no video, it's just audio. Very short and really helpful!

Many thanks for a great first week!

Bill Liberatore

Great First Day!

Thanks to everyone for a great first day. I was so thrilled to see so many new people and enthusiastic faces. There is so much to do to get everything off the ground, but hopefully we will be making great music before you know it. In the meantime, here is my favorite choir rehearsal ever seen in a movie. Hilarious! I am sure our first rehearsal will go better than Whoopi's did!
Best,
BL

Welcome to the Gunn Choir 2009-2010

August 20, 2009
Dear Choir Members,
I am so excited to be welcoming you all back! The 2009 Choir Tour to Prague and Vienna was one of the most exciting musical experiences I have ever had with a choir, and I can hardly wait to get started making music with you all again. The tour really helped to remind me what incredible things are possible when we all focus and commit to making great music together. I can’t wait to see what 2009-10 brings for us all! For those of you who are new to Choir, here are just a few of the things you have to look forward to.

Fall Concert, Sunday, October 25th, 7:00 PM, Grace Lutheran Church
Be sure to mark your calendars now for the Choir’s debut performance on Sunday, October 25th at 7:00 PM at Grace Lutheran Church, corner of Loma Verde and Waverley. It is always one of the most exciting concerts of the year as our choirs take the stage for the first time in a program of culturally rich and diverse choral music from around the world.

Winter Concert, Thursday, December 17th, 7:30 PM
This year we will be doing a winter program featuring a wonderful mass for women’s voices by Latvian composer Imant Ramnish, who lives in Canadian and writes really cool and contemporary music; a Gloria by Emma Lou Diemer, one of the most fantastic female choral composers in America; and with our own amazing Gunn Orchestra we will be performing Schubert’s Mass in G, one of the great masterpieces in the classical repertoire. There are lots of fantastic solos in this set too!

Choir Retreat, YMCA Camp Jones Gulch
I am excited to announce that we are doing the retreat a whole new way this year. Instead of going in November when so many of our singers have conflicts with the fall play, we are going in January while we are working on the February Show. I think it sounds really fun to go up while we are doing so much singing and dancing and acting, and I think it will be a kick. I have the camp booked for Jan 30/31, but I think we should think about leaving on Friday instead of Saturday morning. I think we will get so much done for the choir show, and have a blast at the same time.

Choir Staff Musical, Tuesday/Wednesday, February 9th & 10th, 8:00 PM

One of the biggest events at Gunn is our annual Choir/Staff Musical Extravaganza. I am thrilled to announce that we will be doing an all-new show this year. Nancy Hersage is writing it as we speak, and I know it is going to be hilarious. I love the excitement of putting a show together for the very first time. This year’s show will be February 9th & 10th and will feature all of our Choir students as well as more than 50 Gunn Staff, and the JLS & Terman Choir students.



CMEA Choral Festival, Saturday, May 8, Saratoga High School
The California Music Educator’s Association hosts annual music festivals which include fantastic live and taped adjudication by top choral conductors and a chance to participate in a sight-reading examination. It is a great motivator for us to work hard on our musicianship as well as our sound as the year progresses. This year’s festival is on Saturday, May 8th. Festival times will not be announced for a long while, but I am hoping for morning performances. The choirs were simply amazing at last year’s CMEA. You can hear their performances at GunnChoir.org.

Spring Tour to New York City, May 26-30. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I cannot tell you how much I love touring with the choir, and there is no other more affordable or exciting place to sing than NYC with it’s amazing array of shows, museums, and fantastic concert venues. It is without a doubt my favorite place to go in the United States. I cannot wait to experience the thrill of Times Square, and the glorious acoustics of Riverside Church or Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. We need lots of chaperones too, so parents save the date!



Spring Concert, Thursday, June 4, 7:30 PM Spangenberg
Our musical farewell to the class of 2010!
Composer’s Showcase, Sunday, June 7, 7:00 PM Spangenberg
I decided to continue the tradition of producing a concert of original works but I wanted to move it to the end of the year so we could include some of the terrific compositions written by the AP Music Theory class as well. It also sounded like a good idea to move the concert around so the lyrics can be inspired by different things. The last 2 years were in December so there were a lot of songs about Winter or the holidays. Let’s see what Spring does to inspire our young composers!

Other details:
Enrollment
Enrollment is really good, especially considering all the seniors who graduated last Spring. We have an unprecedented 50 singers in Treble Choir, the biggest ever. I could not be more thrilled about that. That group is going to be incredible! We also have a really good balance of male to female voices in the Concert Choir, with about 30 men and 55 women, so our program is essentially the same size, but it has shifted a bit to a bigger Treble Choir and a slightly smaller but more balanced Concert Choir. Personally I think this is going to be great, with just a little more elbow-room in E period, and not quite such an overwhelming task when it comes to roll, and basic rehearsal functioning. I do hope you will keep encouraging men to join though. We can only take as many women in Chamber Singers as we have men to balance them, so if you know any guys who love music and travel, bring ‘em on down! Assure them that we will provide the training, if they do not have much singing experience. Chamber Singers auditions are Monday night, August 31 at 6:30.
Choir Data Base
Please send me an email to GunnChoir@aol.com and put “Choir Info” in the subject. I will send you back an online form that you can fill out giving us all your phone and email info. It will save a lot of paper hassle and data entry. Send me your email today! Just one person per household needs to do this.
It is going to be a wonderful year, and I am really looking forward to all of this. I know that with all of us working together, we can make it another year of great music and memories.

Sincerely,
Bill Liberatore
Choral Director
Henry M. Gunn Senior High School
780 Arastradero Road
Palo Alto, CA 94306
(650) 354-8287
email: GunnChoir@aol.com website: GunnChoir.org