Blues Sing National Anthem for Portland Pilots Soccer Game

On Saturday, October 3rd, a crew from the Royal Blues ventured to Merlo Field at the University of Portland to sing the National Anthem before the home soccer game. Thank you to Rennie Kendrick for organizing the event, Zoe Stadler for conducting, and Eliza Coblentz for a donation supporting the choir. The next chance to hear the Royal Blues will be next Thursday night at the Fall Concert in Grant's Auditorium at 7pm.

Rehearsal Tracks Folder

Here is the link to the Google Drive folder that contains rehearsal tracks for most of the music we're singing this year. These are tracks I've made. If these are not the tracks your looking for please check the music links tab above where you'll find 3rd party sources to tracks. Happy practicing!

Rehearsal Track Folder

Welcome to the 2015-16 Season!

Hello and welcome to the 2015-16 GHS Choir season. Here you should be able to find information about upcoming concerts, rehearsals and choir related events. Course Syllabi and a preliminary calendar is going home with students on Monday and Tuesday. You can also follow this LINK to a Google Doc version you can print from home. I've also included my welcome letter beneath. It's shaping up to be a great year so far. The calendar to the left of this post will have all current dates/times and you should be able to link it to whatever calendar system you use. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

Hope everyone had a great summer! I look forward to meeting many of you at back to school night.

- John Eisemann

Dear Grant Choir Students & Parents,

Welcome to the 2015-16 Grant Choir Season! I’m very excited to be back at school after a great summer and can’t wait to start making music with all of you. This will be my fourth year at Grant as the Director of Choral Activities which means this year’s seniors I have been their only instructor. Thank you to all of you for your growth, dedication and leadership in the coming year. We have a great year ahead of us and and a lot of really great music to sing.

The Women’s Ensemble has nearly doubled in size and the Men’s Ensemble is growing even larger every day. Both A Cappella and Royal Blues have very strong numbers and a wealth of talent within them. This year will provide a variety of exciting opportunities for all of the vocal ensembles. The Royal Blues are planning on returning to Ashland in the spring for performances at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Men’s and Women’s Ensemble may be performing in a district non-auditioned choir festival as well as traveling to nearby middle schools for outreach performances. The A Cappella Choir, at over 85 singers this year, is slated to sing a benefit concert at Westminster Presbyterian in place of a Grotto performance this year, and potentially host an All PIL Choral Celebration under the baton of a regionally acclaimed director. And don’t worry, Grantasia! is on again for this December 17th and it’s going to be even bigger and better than last year.

The performing arts department would like to welcome a fifth member to our cohort this year, Branic Howard, who has been hired to take over the Audio Engineering program as well as start a beginning guitar ensemble. Both programs look promising from the start and we are all thrilled to be diversifying and expanding our offerings to the Grant student body. Please welcome Branic to the community when you can, he’ll be helping us with our live sound reinforcement at all of the major productions.

I’d like to thank each and every one of you in advance for all of the wonderful support, generosity, and dedication all of you have for the choral program and the performing arts at Grant as a whole. I know it’s going to be a great year and that is significantly because of your involvement. As always, there will be numerous ways for you to get involved throughout the year. If you’d like to volunteer for concerts or chaperone trips such as George Fox University Symposium or to the OSAA State Choir Championship please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. You can always also keep your eyes peeled for one of my Donor’s Choose projects and pass them along to friends and family if you can.

On the back side of this letter there is a list of all of the currently known choir dates for this year. As the year goes on the calendar will fill in a little more and I’ll do my best to keep you updated. I have two students assigned as official bloggers so that my choir blog, grantchoir.blogspot.com, will be much more informative and up to date. If you ever have any questions or concerns for me please don’t hesitate to ask. You can contact me via email jeisemann@pps.net, phone (503) 916-5160 ex 75734, or stop by the choir room at anytime (room 232). I hope everyone had a great summer and is looking forward the year as much as I am. See you at Back to School Night or the Fall Concert!

All my best -

John Eisemann

Welcome New Royal Blues!

Welcome to the 2015-16 Royal Blues! Here is the roster for the new members:

River Anderson
Sarah Barr
Henry Belliveau
Sunshine Bender
Emilee Brnusak
Sprout Chinn
Libby Clark
Christina DePinto
Hazel Frew
Adrian Galash
Avery Haines
Joshua Hicks
Olivia Hill
Rennie Kendrick
Emmet Lane-Ruckman
Brady McCollom
Dylan Palmer
Kelly Powers
Sam Schrader
Harrison Schrage
Ellory Schrepel
Noah Shapiro
Zoe Stadler
Max Tapogna
Finn Topelmann
Abby Torgeson
Isabel Valle
Claire Wheeler
Willem Winter
Olivia Wolfe
Moya Woods
Tristan Zeryck
Isaiah Zimmerman

Congratulations to all 33 of you! I'm excited to start making music with you in August. Have a wonderful and well deserved spring break! - Mr. E

Music Links:

If Ye Love Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6RgaPTo4hE

El Grillo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI-bQ0RkArA

Barber of Seville

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oio1G-7aopo

A la Claire Fontaine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJSYPKPRE2g

Ashland Day 4 - Sara Onitsuka

Today was a tiring day as well, but for different reasons than the past few days. It was mostly a traveling day - we were supposed to meet in the bus at 8am, but ran late, and didn't leave until around 8:45am. After around 2 and a half hours of driving through a winding road (a long and winding road), we reached Crater Lake.   

Crater Lake had tons of snow surrounding it, but it was certainly still beautiful. We didn't get to sing at Crater Lake, so it was mostly just a quick sight-seeing trip.

Though we intended to arrive home somewhere around 5pm, one of the roads wasn't clear enough (due to snow) for us to use it. So we had to back-track around 70 miles, which added on to the driving time, but at least we were able to stop and get some ice cream! 

This trip was so fun, but felt way too short. I wish we could have just spent a few more days in Ashland, walking around Lithia Park and the downtown area. It was a great bonding experience, and I was able to branch out a little bit by talking to people I haven't much before. This school year, in general, just seemed like it flew by. As the climax of our entire Royal Blues season, the Ashland trip was definitely worth it. As cheesy as it is, the memories I formed and the pictures I took will last a lifetime. Thank you Mr. Eisemann, Wendy and Claire's moms, and the rest of the Blues for making this trip the best ever. ♥ 

Ashland Day 3 - Sara Onitsuka

Day three was another exhausting yet fabulous day. We needed to be in the lobby of the hotel and ready to go at 9:15am today, in order to drive to Helman Elementary School. We performed a bunch of pieces for the students, including some of our Shakespeare pieces. Since they all grew up in Ashland, a lot of them recognized the lyrics for "Double Double Toil and Trouble", which was really cute. They were all such outgoing kids, and were hardly hesitant about asking us questions after we performed. Our performance was crazy - we had so much fun, but got a little out of control (especially on the William Tell Overture)!

We had a short meeting/rehearsal after we got back to the hotel, and Mr. Eisemann used this mini piano to give us all of the pitches for our songs:

Then we had 4+ hours to do whatever we wanted! I went to lunch with Robbie, Cameron, Wyatt, Sophia, Claire, April, and Allison, to a place called Greenleaf.

There was another big group of Royal Blues members at the same restaurant, but sitting in a different area, and we saw Mr. Eisemann too. It's funny - even though the Blues split off, we pretty much ended up in the same place.

Everyone was raving about the "watering hole" in Lithia Park, so we all decided to hike over there. At first, we couldn't find it, but we did find another group of Blues chilling at the creek.  Finally, we found the watering hole, but there were tons of people there, so we left to find our own area.

It was sunny and nice out, and overall just perfect. A couple of us were being adventurous and explored up and down the creek. The water was really cold, but refreshing on such a hot day. Paul (who came later with Owen) and I completely submerged ourselves in the water for fun. It was really cold, but so worth it anyway.

Although the majority of us went to the creek/watering hole, some other activities included - chilling in the hotel room, doing homework, and in general, exploring the town a little more.

It already seemed like we had done a lot in a day, but it wasn't over yet! We changed back into our dresses and tuxes for the apex of our entire trip, and went to the park to eat pizza before walking to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 

Once there, we had an outdoor concert for the people waiting to enter the Shakespeare Festival. There was actually a pretty sizable crowd, but I don't think our voices carried very much in the open air. Despite that, we made the best of it, and kept the William Tell Overture a little more under control (although still full of dancing).

We headed into the theater to watch The Tempest, which might have made more sense to me had I read the book already. Unfortunately, I didn't know anything about the play going in, so it was a little confusing. But the visual effects and overall aesthetics of the play were top-notch, and many of the actors were amazing.

It's now 1:30am, and I have to be ready by 8am in the lobby tomorrow (or should I say later today?). I'm so sad that this trip is already ending, but I've made so many great memories with people. I wish this trip could be longer, because it's paradise here. But it's been a great trip so far!