The Acorn - Oak City Sound's Weekly News - Feb 15, 2024 - Oak City Sound, Oak City Sound - (mixed)
| Type of post: | Chorus news item |
| Sub-type: | The Acorn |
| Posted By: | Nic Cols |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Wed, Feb 14 2024 |
1. High Notes
- Feb 12: Good meeting! We had 21 singers oni the risers.
- Feb 12: Our Singing Valentines season summary:
- Monday: Another Dimension Quartet serenading at Searstone in the Dining Room.
- Tuesday: Another Dimension and Never Home 4 deliver Singing Valentines to Springmoor.
- Tuesday: Never Home 4 delivers concert and clinic at Green Hope High school. Traipse down to the Champagne Room below for more details on this.
- Wednesday: Another Dimension and Never Home 4 deliver more Singing Valentines all around Harnett and Wake Counties.
- Wrap-up: Warren Fuson, Steve Mark, Jack Moody, and Andy L'Esperance make up Never Home 4. Gary Thorn, Nic Cols, Mike Muha, Bob Inskeep, and Carol Stephenson made up Another Dimension.
- Delivering Singing Valentines is one of the best, most fun gigs available to us, They are short, the songs are easy, and the recipients and bystanders are delighted to hear them. Consider joining the V-Squad next year!
- Feb 19 (Monday): Regular weekly meeting at our new (regular) location and our usual time.
- 6:30: Mixed Chorus. Please prep on both songs.
- 7:45: Men's chorus rehearsal. Please prep on the following songs:
- Desperado
- Lazy Day
- Where Everybody Knows
- Honesty
- Ova the Wainbow
- Two Less Lonely
- Register now for the Carolinas District Convention, to be held in Southern Pines NC on April 19 to 20, 2024. Go to https://www.tickettailor.com/events/carolinasdistrictbarbershopharmonysociety/1134374#
- Click on the Big Purple Box in the upper right to register. If you are going to compete with us, you must purchase a Full Registration (early Bird).
- LInks to reserve a hotel room are on the same page.
2. Carol's Korner
Keep working on tall, narrow word shapes. It makes such a difference in our balance and blend!
3. Future Notes
- March 18 (Monday) 6pm: Oak City Sound in Concert at The Cypress of Raleigh, 8801 Cypress Lakes Dr, Raleigh, NC 27615.
4. Long Range
- April 19 to 21: Carolinas District Convention in Pinehurst NC. Quartets will compete on Friday evening. The Mixed and the Men's Choruses will compete, separately, on Saturday! So far, we know that Oak City Sound's 7th Dimension Quartet will be competing on Friday night. Any other quartets?
5. Champagne Room
Congratulations to the Never Home 4 Quartet for a great clinic at Green Hope HS to a group of students and teachers. In Warren's words:
And there you have it: in one event, we have the rebirth of the YMIH* program!. The contacts made there among the Arts faculty are going to be very very helpful for YMIH* going forward, as well as helping support the choral arts in all Wake County Public Schools. The Chorus teacher Allen Botwick replied, "Thank you very much to you and your guys for coming out to sing this morning. The students are just buzzing about it! I'll send an email to all of the chorus teachers on your behalf and to Jeremy Tucker, head of WCPSS Arts."
Through Carol Stephenson’s outreach efforts, Allen Botwick, the choral teacher at Green Hope High School, invited OCS to provide a barbershop demonstration to the choral students there on Feb. 13th. Never Home 4 was able to answer that 8:15 AM call. Mr. Botwick requested we provide an explanation and demonstration of how we build harmonies in the barbershop style. We then sang “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” and "Heart of My Heart” to the students. We then were allowed to take over the remaining 30 minutes of the class providing entertainment for the students, including the two boys who visited Oak City Sound last month. We listened to the students perform the Valentines’ songs they were planning to deliver to other students on Wednesday. We then taught the students a tag and had several volunteer quartets perform the tag for the entire class.
It was great fun and earned a heartfelt thanks from Mr. Botwick, as well as a promise to invite us back. Even better, I got him to agree to serve as a good reference for us with other WCPSS music teachers. This is an important ice-breaker for our relationship with Green Hope as well as the Wake County Public School System and our larger Community Outreach goals with Jeremy Tucker, the new head of the WCPSS arts programs.
As an additional sweetener to help cement our relationship with Green Hope we delivered a singing valentine to Mr. Botwick’s wife, compliments of Oak City Sound.
It was great fun and earned a heartfelt thanks from Mr. Botwick, as well as a promise to invite us back. Even better, I got him to agree to serve as a good reference for us with other WCPSS music teachers. This is an important ice-breaker for our relationship with Green Hope as well as the Wake County Public School System and our larger Community Outreach goals with Jeremy Tucker, the new head of the WCPSS arts programs.
As an additional sweetener to help cement our relationship with Green Hope we delivered a singing valentine to Mr. Botwick’s wife, compliments of Oak City Sound.
And there you have it: in one event, we have the rebirth of the YMIH* program!. The contacts made there among the Arts faculty are going to be very very helpful for YMIH* going forward, as well as helping support the choral arts in all Wake County Public Schools. The Chorus teacher Allen Botwick replied, "Thank you very much to you and your guys for coming out to sing this morning. The students are just buzzing about it! I'll send an email to all of the chorus teachers on your behalf and to Jeremy Tucker, head of WCPSS Arts."
