Children’s Chorus of San Antonio

Children's Chorus of San Antonio
Background information
Origin San Antonio, Texas, United States
Years active 1983 (1983)-present
Website www.childrenschorussa.org

The Children’s Chorus of San Antonio (CCSA) was founded in 1983 by artistic director Marguerite McCormick. The interim Artistic Director is Doreen Rao. The chorus is a non-profit corporation and is composed of over 450 young singers from the San Antonio area and surrounding communities. CCSA’s mission is to bring the highest quality choral music education and performance opportunities to children throughout the metropolitan area.

In addition to presenting its own concert series, CCSA regularly sings with the San Antonio Symphony and San Antonio Mastersingers, and has performed alongside the Texas Bach Choir and the UTSA Choirs and Orchestra, the United States Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants. CCSA has also been featured in the San Antonio Festival, the San Antonio Early Music Festival, Musica San Antonio, and the San Antonio Founders Day Celebration.

CCSA has traveled state- and nationwide to places such as Victoria, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Princeton, and New York City. They have been featured in performances at major music education and choral conferences such as the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA), Texas Choral Directors Association (TCDA), and American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). The chorus is known globally as well, having collaborated with children’s choirs from the Czech Republic and Germany. CCSA has held numerous summer national and international concert tours. These tours have taken the Chamber Choir (CC) and Youth Chorale (YC) to east- and west-coast North American destinations and to Europe, including England, Scotland, Denmark, Italy, and France.

The chorus has performed in venues including the

In 2014, CCSA became a resident affiliate of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, moving the majority of its performances and collaborations with other arts groups into the Tobin Center.

Philosophy

CCSA believes that (a) all children possess a degree of musical ability and (b) engaging in music promotes a greater degree of achievement artistically, academically and socially. It has been well-documented that “students who participate in music education frequently do better than their peers on many measures of academic achievement such as grade-point averages and standardized tests like the SAT or ACT.”[1] In addition, noted early-childhood researcher Lili Levinowitz cites the following: According to Dr. Thomas Armstrong (1994,5), "Intelligence is galvanized by participation in some kind of culturally valued activity and that the individual's growth in such an activity follows a developmental pattern; each activity has its own time arising in early childhood."[2] The chorus’s programs augment the opportunities currently available through San Antonio public schools and early childhood programs and increase the San Antonio community’s capacity to develop the entire child.

Programs

CCSA’s programs are divided into three divisions:

Performing at the annual Spring Song concert in 2008.

Core Ensembles: CCSA consists of four training and performance ensembles for boys and girls ages 8–22. These ensembles provide a rigorous curriculum of performance-based instruction ranging from the basics of vocal technique through an extensive and diverse repertoire. Placement hearings are held annually for both returning and new singers.

Junior Chorus and Junior Chorus North are the two training ensembles for CCSA. Accepting students ages 8 and up, children do not need any musical experience to be part of these choirs.

The advanced ensembles consist of a treble choir and mixed choir. These singers represent CCSA in high-quality performances around the country and the world.

Neighborhood Choirs:

We recognize that many families do not have the ability to reach us through our traditional programs and locations, nor do they have regular access to music; thus, we bring our choral music education to them!

Neighborhood Choirs in 2011.

The Neighborhood Choirs are our community outreach program on the South and West sides of San Antonio, provides the opportunity for San Antonio, South San Antonio, Edgewood, and Harlandale ISD elementary and middle school students to experience inspiring musical moments in their own neighborhoods. These students participate in free after-school choir classes that engage the students in the same curriculum and instruction as the comparable levels of our core ensembles.

Our Neighborhood Choirs South division partners with Harlandale ISD for two semesters of music at Harlandale Middle School. Our Neighborhood Choirs West division currently provides singers with a 5-7 course at Our Lady of the Lake University.

Please click here to read more about our Neighborhood Choirs.

Music Together®:

Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music program for infants, toddlers, and young children through age 7 and their families. Its curriculum encourages children’s natural enthusiasm for music and movement. The program requires no prior musical experience on the part of the family. Music Together is currently a tuition-based program and has recently expanded to include both weekday and weekend classes at locations throughout San Antonio. Its class expansion includes a tuition-subsidy for participants from economically challenged communities.

In addition, CCSA offers Big Kids® classes for 5- to 7-year-old children, focusing on basic music literacy and a lifetime of musical enjoyment. The classes provide an opportunity to bridge the gap between childhood music and formal music education.

With CCSA, the program also reaches out to communities in the San Antonio-area, including free-of-charge classes for the children and families of San Antonio’s homeless community, Haven for Hope. Haven for Hope is dedicated to transforming the lives of homeless men, women and children by addressing the root causes of homelessness through education, job training and behavioral health services. Haven for Hope is expanding its core and complementary services available to their families residents and CCSA has implemented a series of Music Together early childhood classes specifically for the children of families in residence to aid in transforming the lives of the youngest of San Antonio’s homeless population.

Numerous studies are available to support the statement and prove that music should be an integral part of every child’s early development. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner states that music intelligence is equal in importance to logical – mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily – kinesthetic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal intelligence.[3] It has also been proven that “music has been shown to be an effective method for relieving stress, curbing anxiety, reducing depression, and enhancing self-esteem. When music is systematically presented within the home environment, positive effects can be noted in family members.”[4] Through music and movement, these provide “patterned, repetitive neural input to the brainstem which would likely diminish anxiety, impulsivity, and other trauma-related symptoms” which can be found in people suffering from homelessness.[5] The objective of the Music Together program at H4H is to participate in the transformation of lives and to facilitate the strengthening of the family bond through the active participation in a positive and encouraging musical setting.

A recent study in Bridgeport, CT measured the efficacy of the Music Together curriculum for preschool children. The study concluded that over the course of the ’07–’08 academic year, four-year-olds in preschool classrooms assigned to receive Total Learning’s Music Together program made significantly greater progress in the Cognitive, Language, and Physical developmental domains than did four-year-olds in classrooms that did not participate in the program. In addition, four-year-olds in preschool classrooms who were assigned to receive Total Learning’s Music Together program also made greater gains in the Social-Emotional developmental domain (self-esteem, self-confidence) than did preschoolers in classrooms that did not participate in the program.[6]

Recordings

Commissions/Performances

Artistic Director Marguerite McCormick and the CCSA have championed new music for children’s choirs by commissioning numerous works including the Scarecrow Pieces by Joan Whittemore in May 1999. Jointly commissioned by UTSA and CCSA, The Present by UTSA professor Dr. James Balentine received its premiere in October 2003. Composer David L Brunner was in residence with CCSA choirs in May 2005 for the premiere of his piece, Then, Now, Forever, commissioned in memory of Tour Director Robert E. “Bob” McCormick. 2007 saw the world premiere of Annunciation by Kevin McCormick and in May, 2009 the chorus gave the San Antonio premiere Like a Singing Bird by Bob Chilcott. Most recently, in 2014 CCSA will give the world premiere of "The Homesteaders," a piece commissioned in tribute of founder and former artistic director Marguerite McCormick.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hodges, D.A. and O’Connell. The Impact of Music Education on Academic Achievement. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005.
  2. ↑ Levinowitz, L. General Music Today, Music Educators National Conference, 1998.
  3. ↑ Gardner, H. Frames of Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
  4. ↑ Asmus, E.P. The Impact of Music Education on Home, School, and Community. The University of Miami, 2005.
  5. ↑ Perry, B. Examining Child Maltreatment Through a Neurodevelopmental Lens: Clinical Applications of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Routledge,2009.
  6. ↑ Michael Cohen Group, LLC, external evaluators, 2008
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