In this issue:
-Fall Concert on Thursday – mandatory student attendance
-Fund raiser under way
-Congratulations Region Choir members
-We host Region Choir Auditions, and they’re coming up fast – need donations and help
-Homecoming recap
-Dynamo game recap
-Chamber Singers enter Macy’s A Capella All-School Challenge
-Chamber Singers for hire at Christmastime
Fall Concert on Thursday
On Thursday, 10/22, the choirs will present the Fall Concert at Webster Presbyterian Church just west of Highway 3 on Nasa Parkway (http://www.websterpresby.org/content.cfm?id=310). The students have been working very hard since the beginning of the year on some wonderful music and are looking forward to performing it for an audience of friends and family.
Please note that in order to avoid conflicts with other organizations, the concert will begin an hour later than our normal concert time, starting at 8:00 PM, and it will last approximately 90 minutes. Students are required as part of their grade to stay until the end of the performance. The concert is free and open to the public.
Call times for each choir:
5:45 PM – Advanced Women’s Chorale (5th period)
6:30 PM – Cantabile (2nd period women)
7:00 PM – Concordia (3rd period men)
7:30 PM – Symphonic Chorale (6th period men and women)
Please note that there will also be a choir booster club meeting before the concert at 7:30 PM at the church. The room within the church where this meeting will take place is TBA.
Please also note that this is a mandatory, required event for all choir students. Participating fully in the Fall Concert is a major test grade. To receive full credit, students must arrive on time, be dressed fully and properly, participate fully in their choir’s performance, demonstrate proper concert etiquette and behavior, and stay until the end of the performance. Arriving late, wearing an incomplete or improper uniform, not singing fully with their choir, misbehavior in the audience or on stage, or leaving the concert early will result in a lowered grade.
For the concert, women should wear their formal dresses with black dress shoes (no high heels). Men should wear their tuxedos with proper footwear. Please note that there are items that the students are required to purchase for their formal concert attire, and there are specific details on how hair and jewelry may be worn. As a reminder, this information can be found on our website handbook: http://www.clearcreekchoir.com/uploads/4/0/3/3/40332685/1516_cchs_choir_handbook.pdf.
Due to campus construction, our auditorium is unavailable for this concert and our Winter Concert in December (which will be held at Clear Springs HS). Due to having a concert off campus, we are providing bus transportation as an option for students who cannot secure their own ride there. If students cannot provide their own ride to the concert, they can ride the bus that leaves CCHS at 5:15 PM from the Band Hall. Students are highly encouraged to provide their own transportation to and from the event, but the bus is provided for those who cannot. The bus will return to CCHS after the concert. We will poll the classes in the coming days, and if there are no students who will be riding the bus, we will cancel it.
As we are guests at Webster Presbyterian Church, please make every effort to be good guests by not leaving trash in the pews, not disturbing any church materials that are in the pews, and overall being good stewards of this facility. We thank you in advance for helping make sure we leave the church in as good of shape as we found it.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the concert!
Fund Raiser Under Way
Last Friday, we launched our Choir Booster Club fund raiser. Last year, our cookies were so successful (and delicious) that we decided to keep selling them this year. They will arrive in time for Christmas, so feel free to purchase some so that you don’t have to bake as much for your guests. For each box purchased, you’ll receive 4 dozen pre-portioned frozen cookies. Baking them is exceedingly convenient: preheat the oven, choose how many cookies you want to bake, bake them, eat them, and put the rest back in the freezer. Unlike tubs of frozen dough where you have to thaw them out all the way before you can bake them, these go straight from the freezer to the oven and are already pre-portioned. And the flavors they have are amazing! Make sure you check out the brochure.
Details on the fund raiser:
-Orders are due on Monday, 10/26.
-Delivery is scheduled for Monday, 12/14.
-Payment needs to be taken when the items are ordered.
-Checks can be made out to CCHS Choir Booster Club.
-Mr. Stultz and Mr. Park have extra order forms if needed.
-Online orders are accepted for your out-of-town family and friends.
If you have family outside of the area who would like to support our choir program by purchasing cookie dough, they can do so online. The cookie dough will be delivered directly to their home. To order online, follow the directions on the fund raiser envelope that the student has. You’ll need the school code (frclelt) and pin code (6463).
We are having some incentive competitions in the choir. The top 2 sellers overall in the choir program will each receive $50 cash. And the class that has the highest per person average will receive a pizza or donut party. So let’s get to selling!
What does the money go for? It will go directly into the Choir Booster Club’s general fund and be used to make sure all students in all choirs get to participate in all of the activities the choir does. Boosters pay for many things over the course of a school year that include transportation to events, contest fees, trip costs, social events, costumes and uniforms, sheet music, karaoke tracks, and student scholarships, as well as tons of other things that come up over the year. If we are doing it, the boosters are helping us do it.
So yes - that’s correct: you can show your support for the Clear Creek Choir by eating some freshly-baked, warm cookies. Win-win!
Congratulations to our Region Choir Members
Last month, 21 students advanced past the TMEA District Auditions and secured a spot in one of the three Region Choirs. They will audition at the Region Auditions on 10/31 to see which Region Choir they are in and to see if they can rank high enough to advance to the third round of auditions. (The fourth round and final round determines who makes the All-State Choir.) Congratulations go out to the following 2015 TMEA Region Choir members:
Mitchell Bonvillian
Jasmine Christensen
Megan Eldridge
Kendall Eley
Paige Eley
Brandon Falknor
Travis Falknor
Iris Garcia
Sarah Hart
Reanna Helton
Stephen Hess
Zachary Hoover
Barrett Langford
Kaylee Miller
Jhanvi Patel
Justin Pollio
Sophia Sledge
Skyla Sonnenburg
Ana Tegeler
Kat Velasco
Logan White
We need help and donations for upcoming Region Choir Auditions
We are hosting the next round of auditions (Region Choir) at Clear Creek HS. We have an opportunity to raise funds for our booster club by selling concessions to the auditioning students, but we need help in stocking the concessions stand, setting up the day before, and operating it on the day of the competition. If you can help set up on 10/30 or work a shift on 10/31, please e-mail Sonja Barosh-Fuqua at sonjabarosh@yahoo.com.
We are also asking all students to bring items to class anytime between now and Thursday, 10/29:
2nd period Cantabile and 3rd period Concordia, please bring full-sized plain Hershey milk chocolate bars, full-sized individual bags of M&Ms, full-sized regular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (2 per package), and/or regular individual packages of Sour Punch straws (any flavors).
5th period Advanced Women’s Chorale, please bring 12-packs (or larger) of cans of Coke, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Sprite.
6th period Symphonic Chorale men, please bring cases or packages of half-liter bottles of Dasani water.
6th period Symphonic Chorale women, please bring packages of hot dog buns.
Thanks for your continued support!
Homecoming Recap
So much thanks to the army of parents who helped run our Fried Oreo booth at the Homecoming Carnival. We broke last year’s record and made even more this year for our booster club! Our booth had a line for all four lunches – we are a very popular booth! So much so that we will likely be purchasing a second outdoor burner so we can double our output next year. Way to go, Booster Club!!!
Our Chamber Singers performed beautifully both at the Candlelight Pep Rally and for all 4 lunches of the Homecoming Carnival! And all five of our choirs also combined for both the Homecoming Pep Rally and the Homecoming Game at Veterans Memorial Stadium to sing the National Anthem. It is always great to get the kids all out there together to be a part of our Homecoming Festivities! We are very thankful that the choir program is such an important part of our Clear Creek HS culture!
Dynamo Game Recap
Many of you saw the video of the National Anthem that we sang before the Houston Dynamo game. For those of you who didn’t see it or hear about it, the Dynamo were playing an international team as part of a charity game, and there was a group of opposing team fans who decided to sabotage our national anthem by yelling, chanting, and playing drums throughout the entire performance. While we are so proud of the professionalism our students showed by continuing to perform it at the highest level (and were subsequently praised by many for doing so), we had never seen such blatant disrespect shown before. I have taken groups to perform National Anthems at Dynamo, Astros, Aeros, and Rockets games as well as numerous other sporting events, and I have never seen anything like what we saw at that game. I was livid afterwards, and I immediately went to speak with our representatives at the Dynamo. They were equally as offended and angry at the situation and said they had never seen anything like that before. It was unprecedented.
But the Dynamo is a class-act organization with whom I have worked for years. They have always treated us right. They immediately apologized for what happened on the field and offered to bring us back next season at no cost to us so that we can sing the National Anthem for a home crowd and respectful audience. Additionally, they have assured me that this specific opposing team will receive repercussions for their fans’ disrespect and will be banned from ever playing the Dynamo at BBVA Compass Stadium again. We really appreciate their offer to bring us back next season and will let everybody know when that date has been secured.
On a positive note, after the National Anthem, the students had a wonderful time at the game. Dynamo games have an electric atmosphere, and the students and parents in attendance had a lot of fun. What made it especially fun is that we blanked the other team and won 4-0. Heck yeah!! That’s what you get when you disrespect us!
Chamber Singers enter Macy’s All-School A Capella Challenge
A capella pop sensation Pentatonix has teamed up with Macy’s department store for the All-School A Capella Challenge, an online contest where the winning entry is awarded $25,000 for their school. To enter the challenge, schools from across the nation had to record their own a capella version of The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” and submit that recording online via YouTube. Our Chamber Singers did just that. If you have some spare time, check out our entry at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyonOiQEHUs. And if you have a little more time, do a YouTube search for “Macy’s All-School A Capella Challenge” and see what other schools from across the nation have done. There are many wonderful entries, and every one of them is unique!
Chamber Singers for hire at Christmastime
Our Chamber Singers perform throughout the community throughout the year, but we are especially busy in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes we go out and perform for free at community events, but we are also available for hire, with the proceeds going directly back into our program. Much of what the Chamber Singers earn through their performances is used to help them travel to the San Antonio Madrigals Festival in February.
Our Christmas performance is a 30-minute set of traditional a capella Christmas carols. Eventually, we will purchase some Victorian costumes so that these performances are in true Dickens-on-the-Strand style. But until we have those costumes, we’ll just be performing the music.
If you are interested in hiring our Chamber Singers for a Christmastime performance for a company party or neighborhood event, please contact Mr. Park (jpark@ccisd.net) to check on their availability and what the range of donations usually are for this type of musical performance. But book it soon – our calendar fills up pretty fast!
Thank you for your continued support of our wonderful Clear Creek HS Choir program. We look forward to seeing everyone at the concert on Thursday!
-Fall Concert on Thursday – mandatory student attendance
-Fund raiser under way
-Congratulations Region Choir members
-We host Region Choir Auditions, and they’re coming up fast – need donations and help
-Homecoming recap
-Dynamo game recap
-Chamber Singers enter Macy’s A Capella All-School Challenge
-Chamber Singers for hire at Christmastime
Fall Concert on Thursday
On Thursday, 10/22, the choirs will present the Fall Concert at Webster Presbyterian Church just west of Highway 3 on Nasa Parkway (http://www.websterpresby.org/content.cfm?id=310). The students have been working very hard since the beginning of the year on some wonderful music and are looking forward to performing it for an audience of friends and family.
Please note that in order to avoid conflicts with other organizations, the concert will begin an hour later than our normal concert time, starting at 8:00 PM, and it will last approximately 90 minutes. Students are required as part of their grade to stay until the end of the performance. The concert is free and open to the public.
Call times for each choir:
5:45 PM – Advanced Women’s Chorale (5th period)
6:30 PM – Cantabile (2nd period women)
7:00 PM – Concordia (3rd period men)
7:30 PM – Symphonic Chorale (6th period men and women)
Please note that there will also be a choir booster club meeting before the concert at 7:30 PM at the church. The room within the church where this meeting will take place is TBA.
Please also note that this is a mandatory, required event for all choir students. Participating fully in the Fall Concert is a major test grade. To receive full credit, students must arrive on time, be dressed fully and properly, participate fully in their choir’s performance, demonstrate proper concert etiquette and behavior, and stay until the end of the performance. Arriving late, wearing an incomplete or improper uniform, not singing fully with their choir, misbehavior in the audience or on stage, or leaving the concert early will result in a lowered grade.
For the concert, women should wear their formal dresses with black dress shoes (no high heels). Men should wear their tuxedos with proper footwear. Please note that there are items that the students are required to purchase for their formal concert attire, and there are specific details on how hair and jewelry may be worn. As a reminder, this information can be found on our website handbook: http://www.clearcreekchoir.com/uploads/4/0/3/3/40332685/1516_cchs_choir_handbook.pdf.
Due to campus construction, our auditorium is unavailable for this concert and our Winter Concert in December (which will be held at Clear Springs HS). Due to having a concert off campus, we are providing bus transportation as an option for students who cannot secure their own ride there. If students cannot provide their own ride to the concert, they can ride the bus that leaves CCHS at 5:15 PM from the Band Hall. Students are highly encouraged to provide their own transportation to and from the event, but the bus is provided for those who cannot. The bus will return to CCHS after the concert. We will poll the classes in the coming days, and if there are no students who will be riding the bus, we will cancel it.
As we are guests at Webster Presbyterian Church, please make every effort to be good guests by not leaving trash in the pews, not disturbing any church materials that are in the pews, and overall being good stewards of this facility. We thank you in advance for helping make sure we leave the church in as good of shape as we found it.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the concert!
Fund Raiser Under Way
Last Friday, we launched our Choir Booster Club fund raiser. Last year, our cookies were so successful (and delicious) that we decided to keep selling them this year. They will arrive in time for Christmas, so feel free to purchase some so that you don’t have to bake as much for your guests. For each box purchased, you’ll receive 4 dozen pre-portioned frozen cookies. Baking them is exceedingly convenient: preheat the oven, choose how many cookies you want to bake, bake them, eat them, and put the rest back in the freezer. Unlike tubs of frozen dough where you have to thaw them out all the way before you can bake them, these go straight from the freezer to the oven and are already pre-portioned. And the flavors they have are amazing! Make sure you check out the brochure.
Details on the fund raiser:
-Orders are due on Monday, 10/26.
-Delivery is scheduled for Monday, 12/14.
-Payment needs to be taken when the items are ordered.
-Checks can be made out to CCHS Choir Booster Club.
-Mr. Stultz and Mr. Park have extra order forms if needed.
-Online orders are accepted for your out-of-town family and friends.
If you have family outside of the area who would like to support our choir program by purchasing cookie dough, they can do so online. The cookie dough will be delivered directly to their home. To order online, follow the directions on the fund raiser envelope that the student has. You’ll need the school code (frclelt) and pin code (6463).
We are having some incentive competitions in the choir. The top 2 sellers overall in the choir program will each receive $50 cash. And the class that has the highest per person average will receive a pizza or donut party. So let’s get to selling!
What does the money go for? It will go directly into the Choir Booster Club’s general fund and be used to make sure all students in all choirs get to participate in all of the activities the choir does. Boosters pay for many things over the course of a school year that include transportation to events, contest fees, trip costs, social events, costumes and uniforms, sheet music, karaoke tracks, and student scholarships, as well as tons of other things that come up over the year. If we are doing it, the boosters are helping us do it.
So yes - that’s correct: you can show your support for the Clear Creek Choir by eating some freshly-baked, warm cookies. Win-win!
Congratulations to our Region Choir Members
Last month, 21 students advanced past the TMEA District Auditions and secured a spot in one of the three Region Choirs. They will audition at the Region Auditions on 10/31 to see which Region Choir they are in and to see if they can rank high enough to advance to the third round of auditions. (The fourth round and final round determines who makes the All-State Choir.) Congratulations go out to the following 2015 TMEA Region Choir members:
Mitchell Bonvillian
Jasmine Christensen
Megan Eldridge
Kendall Eley
Paige Eley
Brandon Falknor
Travis Falknor
Iris Garcia
Sarah Hart
Reanna Helton
Stephen Hess
Zachary Hoover
Barrett Langford
Kaylee Miller
Jhanvi Patel
Justin Pollio
Sophia Sledge
Skyla Sonnenburg
Ana Tegeler
Kat Velasco
Logan White
We need help and donations for upcoming Region Choir Auditions
We are hosting the next round of auditions (Region Choir) at Clear Creek HS. We have an opportunity to raise funds for our booster club by selling concessions to the auditioning students, but we need help in stocking the concessions stand, setting up the day before, and operating it on the day of the competition. If you can help set up on 10/30 or work a shift on 10/31, please e-mail Sonja Barosh-Fuqua at sonjabarosh@yahoo.com.
We are also asking all students to bring items to class anytime between now and Thursday, 10/29:
2nd period Cantabile and 3rd period Concordia, please bring full-sized plain Hershey milk chocolate bars, full-sized individual bags of M&Ms, full-sized regular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (2 per package), and/or regular individual packages of Sour Punch straws (any flavors).
5th period Advanced Women’s Chorale, please bring 12-packs (or larger) of cans of Coke, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Sprite.
6th period Symphonic Chorale men, please bring cases or packages of half-liter bottles of Dasani water.
6th period Symphonic Chorale women, please bring packages of hot dog buns.
Thanks for your continued support!
Homecoming Recap
So much thanks to the army of parents who helped run our Fried Oreo booth at the Homecoming Carnival. We broke last year’s record and made even more this year for our booster club! Our booth had a line for all four lunches – we are a very popular booth! So much so that we will likely be purchasing a second outdoor burner so we can double our output next year. Way to go, Booster Club!!!
Our Chamber Singers performed beautifully both at the Candlelight Pep Rally and for all 4 lunches of the Homecoming Carnival! And all five of our choirs also combined for both the Homecoming Pep Rally and the Homecoming Game at Veterans Memorial Stadium to sing the National Anthem. It is always great to get the kids all out there together to be a part of our Homecoming Festivities! We are very thankful that the choir program is such an important part of our Clear Creek HS culture!
Dynamo Game Recap
Many of you saw the video of the National Anthem that we sang before the Houston Dynamo game. For those of you who didn’t see it or hear about it, the Dynamo were playing an international team as part of a charity game, and there was a group of opposing team fans who decided to sabotage our national anthem by yelling, chanting, and playing drums throughout the entire performance. While we are so proud of the professionalism our students showed by continuing to perform it at the highest level (and were subsequently praised by many for doing so), we had never seen such blatant disrespect shown before. I have taken groups to perform National Anthems at Dynamo, Astros, Aeros, and Rockets games as well as numerous other sporting events, and I have never seen anything like what we saw at that game. I was livid afterwards, and I immediately went to speak with our representatives at the Dynamo. They were equally as offended and angry at the situation and said they had never seen anything like that before. It was unprecedented.
But the Dynamo is a class-act organization with whom I have worked for years. They have always treated us right. They immediately apologized for what happened on the field and offered to bring us back next season at no cost to us so that we can sing the National Anthem for a home crowd and respectful audience. Additionally, they have assured me that this specific opposing team will receive repercussions for their fans’ disrespect and will be banned from ever playing the Dynamo at BBVA Compass Stadium again. We really appreciate their offer to bring us back next season and will let everybody know when that date has been secured.
On a positive note, after the National Anthem, the students had a wonderful time at the game. Dynamo games have an electric atmosphere, and the students and parents in attendance had a lot of fun. What made it especially fun is that we blanked the other team and won 4-0. Heck yeah!! That’s what you get when you disrespect us!
Chamber Singers enter Macy’s All-School A Capella Challenge
A capella pop sensation Pentatonix has teamed up with Macy’s department store for the All-School A Capella Challenge, an online contest where the winning entry is awarded $25,000 for their school. To enter the challenge, schools from across the nation had to record their own a capella version of The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” and submit that recording online via YouTube. Our Chamber Singers did just that. If you have some spare time, check out our entry at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyonOiQEHUs. And if you have a little more time, do a YouTube search for “Macy’s All-School A Capella Challenge” and see what other schools from across the nation have done. There are many wonderful entries, and every one of them is unique!
Chamber Singers for hire at Christmastime
Our Chamber Singers perform throughout the community throughout the year, but we are especially busy in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes we go out and perform for free at community events, but we are also available for hire, with the proceeds going directly back into our program. Much of what the Chamber Singers earn through their performances is used to help them travel to the San Antonio Madrigals Festival in February.
Our Christmas performance is a 30-minute set of traditional a capella Christmas carols. Eventually, we will purchase some Victorian costumes so that these performances are in true Dickens-on-the-Strand style. But until we have those costumes, we’ll just be performing the music.
If you are interested in hiring our Chamber Singers for a Christmastime performance for a company party or neighborhood event, please contact Mr. Park (jpark@ccisd.net) to check on their availability and what the range of donations usually are for this type of musical performance. But book it soon – our calendar fills up pretty fast!
Thank you for your continued support of our wonderful Clear Creek HS Choir program. We look forward to seeing everyone at the concert on Thursday!
RSS Feed