This Week in Choir: Week 19

Good Afternoon Grissom Choir,

Happy New Year!  I hope that each of you had a great Winter Break, and a Happy Holidays this past December.  I am so proud of the work that each of our singers put into their continued choral music education in the fall semester.  That work is going to allow us to sing some challenging & rewarding repertoire this spring!  Please see below the MANY updates we have leading into this new semester:


This Week in Choir…

Women’s Choir:
Scale Reviews
Begin learning Spring Repertoire

Men’s Choir:
Scale Reviews
Music Theory Review
Begin learning Spring Repertoire

Concert Choir:
Begin learning Spring Repertoire

Chamber Choir:
Music Theory Review
Begin learning Spring ACDA Repertoire & History


Grissom Choir Financial Update Letter
Please see the PDF below which details a letter from myself and our Treasurer, Amanda Francis, concerning a financial update for all Grissom Choir stakeholders.

Financial Letter

Grissom Choir Apparel
We still have many students that have yet to pick-up either their T-Shirt or Sweatshirt from the spring.  If you ordered one, please ensure that you pick it up the first week back.  Come January 13th, I will be offering up remaining apparel items to students that miss the sign-up deadline for these items.


Solo & Ensemble
The deadline to register for this year’s Solo & Ensemble Festival is next Friday, January 10th!  If there is any students or groups of student’s that would like to participate in this year’s Solo & Ensemble Festival, please visit https://www.grissomchoir.com/soloensemble.html to find out more!  You must speak with Mr. Ratcliff by the end of the week back so that we can discuss eligibility, repertoire selections & registration details.


Grissom Choir UAB Honor Choir Participation
This spring, all 4 Grissom Choirs will be traveling down to the Birmingham on Monday, February 24th for the University of Alabama in Birmingham’s Honor Choir.  This honor choir is designed to affirm the participation of young singers in the vocal arts. The choirs are comprised of high school students throughout the State of Alabama. Students work closely with the festival clinician in intense rehearsals focusing on musicianship skills, voice building, and ensemble performance. The choir also rehearses and performs side-by-side the UAB Concert Choir. Students will experience concerts and masterclasses, and will perform with seasoned professionals on traditional and exciting new choral repertoire.  A more detailed letter will be emailed out & sent home at the end of January  Please mark your calendars for this day!


Grissom Choral Assessment
We are excited to announce that this year, Grissom Choir will be hosting it's first annual Grissom Choral Assessment, which will act as an in-house choral performance assessment for Grissom Choir, alongside its three feeder middle school choral programs: Challenger Middle School, Mountain Gap Middle School, & Whitesburg Middle School.  In this assessment, each of the schools various choirs perform two songs in contrasting style in front of two performance adjudicators for ratings ranging from "Outstanding" to "Fair".  The on-stage choir is then given a post-performance one-on-one clinic & workshop with one of the adjudicators, which is designed to encourage, invigorate, and enforce the daily teachings of each department.  This event acts as a replacement for the adjudicated State Choral Performance Assessment, originally scheduled for February 27th-28th.  Please mark your calendars for the new assessment date, March 6th, which will be held at Grissom High School during the school day.  More information about this event, alongside our two clinicians, can be found at www.grissomchoir.com/grissomchoralassessment.