Welcome to HighSchoolChoralResources.com!

BY BARBARA RETZKO

It was Friday, March 13, 2020. The Ridge High School Concert Choir was six days away from sharing their one-night-only performance called Thru’ the Decades and the excitement in our rehearsal space was electric!

And then, we received the district-wide email: All schools will dismiss their students at noon. All teachers should prepare for two weeks of remote instruction using something called Zoom because of a global pandemic. We were told: Don’t advance the curriculum.Don’t worry about grades. Just check in with your students every day. We received instructions on how to use Zoom and home we went.

Two weeks became four. March became April. And then May. Graduation would become virtual as did my Choral program. Virtual Choir? Ours is a wonderfully interactive and communicative field, ripe with feelings, emotions, and memories built through every rehearsal interaction and every melody sung. It is neither distant nor can it ever be communicated effectively by way of a computer screen. After 40+ years of bringing my students into the indescribable experience that is the Choral Art, I was not interested in reimagining or redefining my life’s work through a 13” monitor.

For years, I told my students that I would leave when I felt I had nothing left to give. I would leave on my own terms, in my own time, and on the crest of the wave. All I wanted to do was to see my kids and rehearse our rep. But all I was able to do was try to create meaningful, grade-producing activities to keep those on my rosters engaged. The realization hit me mid-May that my plan to leave the teaching profession was being taken out of my hands.

So, after a long and glorious career, on July 1, 2020, I retired as the original Choral Director of Ridge High School.

Regardless of how we exit, leaving the profession immediately prompts the question: What are you going to do now? For me, the short answer was found in offering to fill the needs of friends, family, and colleagues. Can I run an errand for you? Can I research a topic for a lesson you’d like to present? Can I create Sibelius™ Rehearsal tracks for you to share with your singers?

I brought home over four decades of teaching materials that needed a new home. Looking at that material, I thought it might be beneficial to the next generation of teachers to have free, organized, and targeted reference guides. As I looked ahead to what would become more of the same the following September, I couldn’t see myself not helping. Basic Music is Basic Music. All that material was not going to go out of date and I needed a new purpose.

That purpose became the impetus for the creation of https://www.highschoolchoralresources.com. A place where I could share ideas, projects, philosophies, assessments, worksheets and answer keys to help enhance the education that Choral Directors everywhere were struggling to provide their students every day. It was cathartic. It was inspiring. It was a way for me to pay forward all that I had experienced in a truly glorious career. And to-date, Google tells me that there have been 32,800 all-time page views, confirming that the need was and is there for this type of a resource!

There are dozens of pages throughout the site to explore: Monthly Ideas, Concert Programming, Student Teaching Reflections, Worksheets, Answer Keys, and more. It is the site I wish I had had in the middle of my career as a reference and resource. My greatest wish is that it can be used by you to save some time during your busy Choral Director’s life!

One of my favorite contributions are the pages devoted to Music Theory. Back in the day of my high school choral experience, everything was taught to us by rote. No sight-singing, solfege, or music theory. If you could hold it in your head, you did well. As someone who “liked to sing”, I decided to go to college as a Music Education major. (How hard could it be?)

As it turns out, pretty hard! I remember the fear and embarrassment of being asked to sing a perfect 4th at my audition and having no idea what they were asking. I hated the struggle in every Music Theory class as I worked just to keep up. I vowed that if I were to succeed in getting a degree and a job, I would teach theory to every student I ever had, never wishing that feeling of ignorance on anyone.

I created the semester course that you can find on my site. There are tons of worksheets, but no tests or quizzes. I used the concept of repetition equals retention. Everything created with the goal of ‘testing out’ of Music Theory 101 in college.

I didn’t get to formally teach Music Theory to all my students, but those who took the class represented a sweeping cross-section of the high school population: Garage band kids, song writers, budding composers, and aspiring teachers. They were all a joy! What else will you find on the site? How about:

Seven years of collegiate Woman’s Choir programs from my time as the Director of the Voorhees Choir at Rutgers University including YouTube clips and sample syllabi.

Sample Concert Program formats and Fliers. Student Teacher Co-Op materials. There are articles from workshops I have presented including, "Things I Wish I Knew in my First Few Years of Teaching" and "What Teachers Expect from a Student Teacher."

Choir Retreat Program: I highly recommend the ideas, framework, and schedule that can be found under the A Cappella Choir Honors section for hosting a retreat as a bonding experience for your students.

For fun, you’ll find a Super Bowl National Anthem Bracket. Like many of the resources on the site, this was contributed, but it looked interesting!

It’s all there and so much more. I am happy to have been asked to share it with you and hope that it serves its initial purpose – to pay forward a career in Choral Music Education that was rife with memories to last a lifetime Please feel free to reach out via email if I can help in any way!

Recently retired, Barbara Retzko served as Ridge High School’s Choral Director in Bernards Township NJ from 1980-2020. There she led five award-winning ensembles and served as Conductor for School Musicals. From 20002002, she served as Choral Director at the International School of Düsseldorf, Germany where her singers performed in Honor Choirs in Den Hague, Netherlands, Stavanger, Norway and Berlin, Germany. In May 2002, May 2006, and May 2019, she served as Guest Conductor for International Honor Choirs in Zurich and Basel, Switzerland. From 2006-2013, Barbara served as Associate Professor at Rutgers University (Douglass College campus), directing the Voorhees Choir.

Barbara Retzko possesses a strong commitment and dedication to the Choral education of all singers. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from Trenton State College and her Master of Arts, Summa cum laude, in Choral Conducting from the same. She is at home with her fabulous husband Rick, in Bernardsville, NJ.

Barbararetzko@hotmail.com