Mrs. P's Singers and Ringers Blog

I’m not sure why I have gone so long without blogging.  It may have been because, with Ms. Morton teaching, we didn’t have some of the class discussions that tend to trigger blog posts.  It may be that I’ve been a bit distracted, since a lot of my spare time has been taken up with the arrangements for my daughter’s wedding, which will take place before the end of school.  Whatever the reason, it’s time to write again.

The last day of school for all of you is June 6th, which is six weeks from yesterday.  That’s not that far off, is it?  And the last day of school for me, forever, is June 7th.  I am looking forward to retiring, but I will definitely miss all of you.  But I know that it’s the right time for me to do this, and now that Ms. Bennett has hired Ms. Morton to be your teacher next year, I know that I am leaving you in good hands.  And I will be around.  I told Ms. Morton that I’m not going to be here looking over her shoulder, but if she has questions or needs help with anything, I will be glad to help.

Between now and the end of the year, however, we have a lot of work to do.  Here is a list of upcoming performances:

National Junior Honor Society induction ceremony:  May 8th.  This is a handbell performance.

Fifth grade articulation (when next year’s sixth graders visit):  May 16th.  Handbells and Concert Chorus.

Spring Concert: May 23rd.  Beginning and Concert Choruses and Handbells.  This is the biggie!  And, since it’s my last spring concert, it will be very special.

8th grade awards: June 3rd, at Wellington High School.  Concert Chorus.

6th and 7th grade awards assemblies:  June 5th, during the day at WLMS.  Handbells.

Boy, that’s a lot to squeeze into the next five weeks.  Are you ready?

Thank you to our Wellington Landings Ringers for a great performance yesterday at our Super STARR assembly.  We have gotten so many compliments from other teachers.  I think that this was the first time Mr. Wilbur heard us play, because he told me that we sounded a lot better than he had expected!  Even this morning, teachers have come up to me, asking me to pass along their compliments to you for a job well done.

So, we’re moving on.  We’ll put Pirates away for a while, and look at some new music.  And, next week, Ms. Morton will begin teaching your class.

It’s that time of year when we get very busy with performances.  Beginning Chorus will kick everything off by singing at Barnes & Noble on December 1st.   Yes, that is a Saturday, but it’s a very short performance.  Everyone needs to arrive by 11:45.  We will sing at noon, and our mini-concert lasts only about 20 minutes.  As soon as we’re done, you are free to leave.  It’s also very informal.  You will need to wear your Chorus shirts, but you can wear them with jeans.

Winter Arts Festival is our opportunity to show off all the music programs at Landings.  This is actually a series of concerts that takes place over three nights, but each group performs just once.  (I know some of you will need to come twice, if you are in both chorus and band and your groups are playing on different nights.  Sorry!)  Beginning Chorus will sing at the Wednesday evening performance, and Concert Chorus and Handbells will perform on Thursday.  The Wednesday evening concert will be short, probably less than an hour, because there are just two groups performing that night.  Unfortunately, we have no beginning handbells this year; that would have been their night to perform, which will make the concert shorter.

Concert Chorus will have one more performance, on December 14th at the Kravis Center.  I will be sending home more information about that in a few days.  I turned down another performance request for December, because I think we have more than enough to do!

Wow!  The summer really flew, didn’t it?  It is hard to believe that school is about to start.  And we’re going to be busy from Day One.

For Concert Chorus, our schedule looks pretty busy.  We will be singing on September 10th for the volunteer breakfast here at school.  That means that we only have about three weeks to get ready, and usually we sing three songs.  Also, because last year’s beginning chorus had a performance the next-to-last day of school, I didn’t get a chance to listen to everybody individually and place you as a soprano or alto.  So we will have to accomplish that very quickly.  I am also waiting to hear if we have been accepted to sing at the Kravis Center again this year.  Those of you who sang there last year know that this is a great experience, but it means a lot of hard work to get ready.

I have some great music picked out for both chorus and handbells.   I will get some listening links up soon.  I think you will like the songs we do.

Have a fun last week of vacation.  I know we’ll have lots to talk about next week.

You can probably tell from the fact that I haven’t put up a new post in a few weeks that it has been a very hectic time for Chorus and Handbells.  Yesterday’s performances for next year’s sixth graders went very well, despite a few “blips” that we’ll discuss in class.  And Wellington Ringers will perform this evening at Seminole Ridge High School, as part of their Spring Fling choral concert.

Now is the time to make sure that our spring concert is on your family’s calendar.   The concert will take place on May 22nd, a Tuesday, at 7:00pm in the WLMS cafeteria.  The performance will include both choruses and both handbell ensembles (no band).  Handbell students need to be here at 6:30, and chorus students have a report time of 6:40.   This performance serves as our nine-week exam, and attendance is mandatory.  If you need to, you can check out the attendance policy in the Chorus Handbook or the Handbell Handbook.

Concert Chorus also needs to add Wednesday, June 6th, to their performance calendar.  We will be singing for the eighth grade awards program, which will take place this year at Wellington High School.  I will have more information for you soon as to the time, and what we will be singing.  So pay attention in class!

As I discussed in class yesterday, we have been invited to sing at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington.  Our performance will be January 21st, which is a Saturday.  Please save the date now.  Ms. Bennett is trying to arrange for us to have a tour before our performance, which will be at approximately 6:20.  I will get the exact performance and call times, as well as directions and everything else you need to know as soon as I have them.

This is what I’m envisioning for our program:

• Rhythm of Life
• Our Town
• Uncle Joe
• True Colors
• Dance Love Sing Live

And, of course, we will be singing the National Anthem.  We will be doing our performance with recorded accompaniment this time.

We don’t have a lot of time to pull this together.  January 21st sounds like it’s a long way away, but we actually have very few classes until then.  So let’s get to work!

A reporter from the Town-Crier newspaper came to school two weeks ago to visit Concert Chorus, to find out more about our upcoming performance at the Kravis Center.  She wrote a very nice article that appears in this week’s paper.  She also shot some video while we were rehearsing, and that is on the newspaper’s website.  I don’t know how long it will be up there, so you might want to check this out quickly.

Here’s the link to the article.  You can click on the link in the article to see the video.   Warning:  don’t try this on a school computer.  The video is blocked.

Is everyone ready for the new school year?  The train is going to leave the station on Monday, and it’s going to pick up steam pretty quickly.  I’m excited for the new year.  I have some great things planned, new music ordered, and I’m looking forward to getting started.  As you may have heard, we have a new principal, Ms. Bennett, and she loves music.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she drops into the chorus and handbell classrooms on a regular basis. 

You might want to mark the following dates on your calendar.  I think I have all of them up on Edline, but I want to keep this up-to-date, too.

• September 14:  Our Enjoy the City coupon book fundraiser kicks off.
• September 15:  Concert Chorus will sing for the PTO volunteer breakfast.
• September 24:  All-State Chorus musicianship and sight-singing tests.
• October 11:  Combined choral concert at Wellington High School for both beginning and concert choruses.
• November 18 and 19:  Solo and ensemble MPA.  We’ll be talking about this very soon.
• December 3:  Beyond the Stage performance at the Kravis Center for  Concert Chorus.  This is also the date of WLMS Day at Barnes & Noble, and I may take Beginning Chorus for that, too, if I can figure out how to clone myself
• The dates for Winter Arts Festival aren’t finalized yet.  I’ll let you know as soon as they’re approved.

And that’s just first semester!  I’m tired just typing it!

You can follow this link to the Kravis Center website to see us listed for our Beyond the Stage performance before My Fair Lady on December 3rd.  I just get a little crazy when I see us listed like that.  Then I know it’s real.

I got an email from Ms. Prater today, with a number of dates, and the Barnes and Noble day is the same date as our Kravis performance.  So Concert Chorus will not be performing at B&N.  I may take Beginning Chorus, but we’ll see as we get closer.  There’s only so much I can do!

Also, my plan is for Concert Chorus to sing for the PTO volunteer breakfast on September 15th.  That means we will have to get started on some new music right away.  But it will be good to get our performance schedule rolling.

I hope you are all continuing to have a wonderful summer.  Here’s another picture from my vacation.  This was taken at the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle, Washington.  This is a fantastic interactive museum, mostly about contemporary music.  I’m standing in front of the “guitar volcano,” a sculpture made up of hundreds of instruments.  Not all of them are guitars.  This sculpture actually plays music!  Read all about it.

Great news for Concert Chorus:  we have been accepted to perform at the Kravis Center for their Beyond the Stage series!  We got our first choice of date, December 3rd.  We will sing on the grand staircase before the show on the main stage.  That evening, the main stage performance is the musical “My Fair Lady,” so we will probably sing some Broadway songs and maybe some jazz standards.  We’ve done this twice before, and it is a very special experience.  It will make our first semester very busy, since it will be different music from what we do for our joint concert with the high school chorus and winter arts concert.  But I know you are up for the challenge!