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
