{"id":863,"date":"2019-06-03T15:47:34","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T15:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/?p=863"},"modified":"2019-06-03T15:47:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T15:47:34","slug":"campus-school-chorus-a-connector-to-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/2019\/06\/03\/campus-school-chorus-a-connector-to-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus School Chorus: A Connector to Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cEveryone take a deep breath and relax into the song,\u201d Cindy Naughton tells a gymnasium filled with Campus School chorus members. \u201cLet me hear your beautiful voices!\u201d<\/p>\n

It is Wednesday at Campus School, and the basketball hoops are raised to the ceiling. A piano abuts the stage in the gym, and rows of chairs are filled with young singers snacking on sandwiches and shuffling through lunch boxes. Children listen attentively as they finish their meals and prepare to sing. Ms. Naughton– who has taught at Campus School for thirty-five years– stands, with a smile, in front of them.<\/p>\n

For the past eight years, Ms. Naughton has directed the chorus and grown its participation to seventy students from the fourth through sixth grades. \u201cThe fact that we have high participation means a lot to me,\u201d she shared, \u201cSome school choruses are audition only, but ours is not. Ours is open to anyone who wants to come sing, as long as they can focus and participate positively\u2026 I try to make it as possible as I can for everybody to come to chorus and give what they can and get what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of rehearsal, one young singer shuffled over in his winter coat to share what chorus means to him: \u201cWe get to sing good songs and go to places big and small,\u201d he said, \u201cretirement homes, hundreds of people at a concert. We get to learn all these songs. It feels really good to sing, because it\u2019s like, even if you get off tune, it\u2019s not the worst thing– you can get better. You\u2019re the one making the music, not just listening.\u201d Standing to his right, a friend nodded, reiterating: \u201cIt\u2019s really nice because I can sing the way I want to, with so much passion. Ms. Naughton has a kind heart, has a lot of soul, and chorus is a place that you can feel free to just sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

Ms. Naughton supports a solo-performer at the annual Campus School Thanksgiving Assembly held in John M. Greene Hall<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Ms. Naughton pays careful attention to the selection of those \u201cgood songs\u201d that students so enjoy, infusing her chorus curricula with music both current and classic:<\/p>\n

I try to make sure that I have a balance between what\u2019s just singing for fun, and what\u2019s really pushing the kids, \u201c she shared. \u201cWe have some things that are challenging and hard, and each rehearsal– and each year– I\u2019m trying to balance those things. Every year, I try to make sure that I program some things that the kids have asked for, some things that represent multicultural music that\u2019s available, including at least one piece that\u2019s in another language. I try to program one piece from the classical repertoire so that they start to learn how to sing that kind of music, and I also often have something from a current Broadway musical or musical movie: we\u2019ve done Les Mis<\/i>, Hamilton<\/i>, \u00a0Matilda<\/i>. This year it\u2019s Mary Poppins Returns<\/i>, last year it was The Greatest Showman<\/i>. We often do medleys from these musicals so we get to do more songs. Also, because the pieces were created for a different context, not a choral setting, there will be parts of them that are more or less appropriate for a kids\u2019 chorus to sing, and by doing a medley I can include things that, if I had to do the whole songs, maybe wouldn\u2019t work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An integral element of the Campus School chorus is its emphasis on cultivating community within and beyond Campus School walls. Representative of the ways in which music draws people together, the SCCS chorus both gives and receives: \u201cThe past three years, I\u2019ve been lucky to have an extremely talented parent who comes in as my accompanist and also does arranging, and has even composed some pieces for us,\u201d Ms. Naughton shared. \u201cThis is her profession, and she\u2019s very good at it, so we\u2019ve been extremely lucky to have her donate her time. I have parent volunteers who come in, and I\u2019ve had Smith student volunteers who come in to help both with management and being available for someone who might need a little reminder, or can\u2019t find the music\u2026 This year, I have a student who is in the Glee Club and is coming in to help with singing, so when we\u2019re learning pieces that have two parts she is singing with the sopranos, and I am singing with the altos, and we can just learn music that much faster.\u201d Ms. Naughton also appoints student helpers who stay after chorus to stack chairs and clean the space. \u201cIt\u2019s really a lovely community service that they provide to their fellow chorus members and to me,\u201d she said, emphasizing the stewardship inherent in this ritual.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Campus School chorus members share their voices in John M. Greene Hall.<\/p><\/div>\n

Outside of Campus School, young chorus members share their work with the Smith community at events like the Thanksgiving Assembly in John M. Greene Hall; the Martin Luther King Jr. Day assembly; Grandparents\u2019 Day assembly; Smith College student houses at Friday afternoon teas; Smith College Art Museum; and Otelia Cromwell day, among others. In the local community, Campus School students perform at retirement facilities like Rockridge and Lathrop, in downtown Northampton at the annual holiday Bag Day, and, in years past, even in operas at the Academy of Music Theater. \u201cSinging allows me to sing what\u2019s in my heart, and it\u2019s important to me,\u201d one young singer shared after practice. \u201cI look forward to it every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a technical standpoint, Ms. Naughton guides students through the nuances of vocal performance, encouraging children to focus on themselves as individual performers, as well as members of a group:<\/p>\n

We talk about body posture\u2014how you use your body, how you sit, how you breathe; singing in harmony, trying to point out thirds or sixths\u2014what most harmony would be built on in two-part; how to find those pitches; how to sing in cannon or in a round and be able to hold your own part. A little bit on how to find a pitch, especially when we were doing the operas\u2026 they\u2019re listening ahead for this thing coming ahead of them: how do you find your pitch from the last thing that you just heard? Breathing. Singing in tune. I also talk about blend\u2014if you can hear your voice, and it\u2019s louder than everybody else\u2019s, then it\u2019s too loud. Or sometimes, when we\u2019re singing in harmony, I want to encourage people to blend. So, if the mezzos have a solo, then other people have to back away, so those are the things that I like to work towards. Also making them aware of the kinds of things that are out there\u2014we\u2019re doing a short little Handel piece from Judas Maccabaeus, so they\u2019re learning how to sing it in that typical baroque vocal line, and we have done some Bach, we\u2019ve done some Schubert, so they\u2019re learning a bit about the masterworks of classical repertoire. Last year, they did a piece with the Smith College Glee Club that was all in Lithuanian\u2026 it was really impressive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms. Naughton says that she \u201cwas one of the lucky people who discovered what [she] wanted to do fairly early on.\u201d In high school, she was the choreographer and accompanist for her school musicals and was asked by a friend\u2019s parent to give piano lessons to her friend\u2019s younger sibling. \u201cI sort of just agreed because it was a family friend,\u201d she admitted, \u201cbut then I found that I really, really enjoyed it, and that\u2019s what started me on the path to wanting to go into music education. I was really lucky that everything I did as I went along my educational path confirmed that this was really what I wanted to do.\u201d Her career began in Nebraska, where she student-taught under the guidance of a cooperating teacher in all vocal and instrumental music programs in grades k-12, in a small school where she \u201chad a chance to do everything\u201d before moving east to teach in Milford, Connecticut, and West Hartford. She then ventured to Northampton and finding her place at Campus School. At the time, she was Musical Director, and later took over for a theater company at the Center for the Arts– a passion that she channeled into the first fifth grade play, what is now a central tradition of coming-of-age at Campus School. She sent all four of her sons through the k-6 program (to read about one of their successes, please check out our alumni profile with Geoff Moss \u201896 here) and has continued to enrich both music curricula and extracurricular offerings since her start at SCCS.<\/p>\n

\u201cSinging is important because it lets me express myself,\u201d one boy shared as he reached for his backpack. \u201cIt\u2019s really helpful, and there\u2019s something supportive about it. [When I\u2019m singing], I feel good and happy and courageous and emotional and hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening to the lyrics of chorus members through the gymnasium doors on Wednesday afternoons, we at Campus School feel the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Written by Brittany Collins<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEveryone take a deep breath and relax into the song,\u201d Cindy Naughton tells a gymnasium filled with Campus School chorus members. \u201cLet me hear your beautiful voices!\u201d It is Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":666,"featured_media":864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/666"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/labschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}