School Workshops

High School Choral Workshops

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 A day of learning, rehearsal, and performance…

Help students develop a lifelong love of music – as listeners and participants. Inspire them with the chance to work and perform with the Vermont-based professional vocal ensemble Counterpoint. Counterpoint has offered successful rehearsal-performance workshops with the choruses of schools throughout Vermont and New England. We offer effective experience to supplement a school’s program, tailored to the student’s needs and the school choral director’s teaching goals.

Our high school workshops introduce challenging and diverse multicultural repertory to high-school students and teachers. We collaborate with the school choral directors in advance to fashion a program including pieces from Counterpoint’s repertory and from what the school ensemble is rehearsing. The program highlights the strengths and interests of the student musicians, adds interesting repertory from Counterpoint’s performances, and makes meaningful connections to other curricular areas.

Read what students and teachers are saying about us…

In advance of the workshop, we send material about the music for use in preparing the students. Then, on the day of the workshop, we introduce ourselves and the cultural history behind the joint selections. We also present something about our own repertory that appeals to the young singers. When we are performing works by Vermont composer, we bring along the composers. Or, we present folksongs and put them in their historical and musical context. Or, we demonstrate how a particular work such a Bach motet is structured by “taking it apart.”

Then we spend plenty of time rehearsing together.  The members of Counterpoint demonstrate rehearsal and performance techniques together. The Counterpoint singers also go off for sectionals with the students of their own parts to work on a set piece or pieces that the students choose. Later, we assemble for a final rehearsal combining the voices of Counterpoint and those of the students.  We encourage other students to attend the workshops as observers: students involved in the school choral program but not in the same ensemble, as well as choral-music students from surrounding schools.

 An evening concert culminates the day’s program, featuring selections by Counterpoint and by the school ensemble, both separately and together. The concert is open to the public so that parents, teachers, students, and other members of the community can see the fruits of the workshop. With good advance publicity, this event can raise awareness and support for the school’s art education, and foster community-wide interest in both music and the school.

Workshops usually start at the end of the school day, but other schedules are possible. Some schools prefer early concerts (7:00), and others like 7:30 or 8:00.

Contact us to learn how to bring Counterpoint to your students. Give them an opportunity to attain an even higher level of ensemble singing, celebrate the diversity of world cultures through music, and increase support for all the arts in your school and community. The fee for a school workshop is $350.00, and we charge $5 admission to the concert to make up some of the rest of our costs.

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What are the students and teachers saying?