A message from our president

Youmightbeacommunitychorusdirectorandhave-

I hope that your holiday season was wonderful and restful! OK, so I know that all the Christmas and holiday concerts and the preparation for all those concerts was a bit overwhelming. What you do during the holiday season is very important!! Did you notice in your community that the holidays bring the community together? You are someone who can truly help to make that happen. You are an influencer!!!! Not on social media, (although you should have a big presence there too!) but you make a huge difference in your community.

In your community, you create much of the holiday spirit, both secular and spiritual!

Here’s what I mean:

If you are a vocal music school teacher in public schools (all grade levels) you have -

1.Winter Concert for Parents

2.Winter Concert for your school and its feeder schools

3.You have your local community run out “gigs” where you sing for every civic organization that you can. (The list is way too long to detail! Right?)

4.You have private concerts/octets that help raise money for your program. (It’s ok to tell them what people normally donate. It is a donation not a fee).

The good news is that the concerts end normally when you get out of school. Except when they don’t. Some of the most interesting and most lucrative “gigs” for my kids have come after school has let out! That is another story!

You might be a college or university conductor or instructor and have -

1.Winter/Christmas Spectacular on campus often many performances of this program.

2.Other holiday recitals/juries and expected concerts for the college/university end of term.

1.Your“ChristmasConcert”withwhateveryoucando foryourcommunity.

Youmightbeachurchchoirdirectorwith-

1Your“BigMusicSunday”beforeChristmaswith brass,bellsandlotsofprep.

2ChristmasEveservices-3:00-5:00-7:00-9:00 and11ormidnight

3ChristmasDayservices-(maybe)

You may be one, two, three or all of these! That is what we do. Do you get it? They all connect together. You have influence in so many aspects of our community. This not about how busy you are, it is how you influence you community! You need to be involved.

So what does that mean? You may not know it but because you are a choral director you signed up to be a leader in your community. We can create unity and community by joining or creating community arts organizations (thanks, Brandon Elliott - new Arts Commissioner Moorpark), creating or helping to create community choirs of adults, teens and children. Look around where you are! Do you see organizations that represent your community? Are there “Y'all Come Sing” groups? Or is it only semiprofessional ensembles? There are singers of all shapes, sizes and experiences out there! How are you going to reengage them into choral music? The answer is different for each of us but over the next few issues I hope that we can tackle THE HOW! I can tell you that I engaged our community in Orange California by creating two massive events that have become "Community Happenings" for the last 28 years.

We have created two “Community Happenings” in the City of Orange that have become hometown traditions. We have a “Tree Lighting and Candlelight Choir Procession” and a “Third of July Celebration”. Both events have thousands of people in attendance every year! They both started with a partnership between the Orange Community Master Chorale, Orange High School, the First Methodist Church of Orange and the City of Orange.

For Tree Lighting we now have other high schools, St. John’s Lutheran Church Children’s Choirs, directed by Audrey Mink and other churches involved along with a full orchestra. This event happens on the first Sunday in December each year. (Even the during pandemic! It was virtual, again a story for a different time!) We have a plaza in the center of Orange Streets leading into the plaza are blocked and we bring in bleachers from the city and high school, set up 2500 chairs, set up sound, lights, gather a choir of 300+ singers, a 55 piece orchestra, and light the City Tree, singing carols with the citizens and they listen to a choral music program! It is a FREE event for the community Tons of volunteer and community support But how this happens is a process that started with action! More of that to come!

The “Third of July Celebration” is mainly a collaboration with the OC Master Chorale, Orange High School, and the City of Orange To answer the first question of why the 3rd of July not the 4th of July, is simple When we started we could not get the pyrotechnics on the 4th so we moved to the third They were all booked on the 4th of July Now it is the one holiday I get off! This event is held in a community park So again, lots of set up and community support! We do traditional patriotic themes and of course there are lots of “Sing-alongs” with all of the traditional songs - This land is your land, Yankee doodle, etc Now, I have to teach these songs to my high school students because they don’t learn them in elementary school anymore! I know it sounds a bit corny, but I like corn! This is what my community responds to There are normally over 10,000 + people at this event And the audience pays for the show! There are food trucks at the event but most people bring their picnic lunches It is very community in it’s feel!

These two events have become “Y’all Come Sing” events so singers don’t have to be a member of the Master Chorale to sing in the choir! They just need to let me voice place them, come to the rehearsals and memorize the music!

Both events started with the Orange Community Master Chorale organizing and paying for everything. EVERYTHING! And yes, we had to create programs and charge for ads. It took the city a couple of years to figure out if it wanted to be a part of the events and to help finance the events. Now it pays most of the cost of both Tree Lighting and 3rd of July.

The point of this article is that YOU ARE THE LEADER in community for the arts. Don’t complain that there is nothing there! Start something! It will take a while, or maybe a long while.

Be the spark! Be the inspiration of a new event for your community Others who are maybe not choral directors in your community want to help and have ideas Be open to the voices around you! We will continue this talk in later articles

If you have something to add please email me (president@acdawestern org) I would love to get your thoughts and Ideas! Start your 2023 with big dreams and remember that ACTION IS WHAT MAKES DREAMS A REALITY!

Michael Short is the current president of Western Region ACDA For the last 43 years Michael has directed choirs from elementary, middle, high school, community college and adult community and church He is currently the choral director and department chairman at Orange High School, founder/director of the Orange Community Master Chorale, president of the Greater Orange Community Arts Theater Foundation (GOCAT) and director of music for the First United Methodist Church all in the city of Orange, California Michael has been married to Vicki for 40 years and they have two grown children and three very cute and smart grandchildren