Choir Members Look Forward to New Year

Maya+Deol+20+gets+creative+while+painting+the+2017-18+choir+camp+posters

Maya Deol ’20 gets creative while painting the 2017-18 choir camp posters

At the end of the 2016-2017 school year, choir suffered a major loss after a lack of funding led to budget cuts. The cuts had been predicted to decrease the number of choirs, as well as remove the position of Assistant Director and the student held Officer positions. However, choir members protested the changes and managed to get the organization up to four choirs, reinstate all officer positions, and return to two directors, regardless of the fact that neither of the previous teachers were returning.

Two new directors, Mr. Andre Clark and Ms. Jennifer Alexander, were announced in mid-August. Head Director Mr. Clark has been teaching music for the past 16 years and was most recently the Head Choral Director and Visual and Performing Arts Academy Lead at Stony Point High School. Ms. Alexander, however, will not be a new face to incoming freshman. Last year, she became the Assistant Director at Canyon Vista Middle School and will be splitting her time this year by working part time in both programs.

“I’m feeling pretty excited,” choir Vice President Osric Nagle ‘18 said. “Mr. Clark has been really fantastic and he’s been making us all really excited about choir and that’s what we need.”

The directors are not the only people who are ready to set out and improve the program, however. New choir President Alexis Lemus ‘18 has been involved in choir since she was a freshman and before she met her group of newly elected officers, already had a journal full of ideas to improve the organization.

“I want us to do this thing called ‘Singer Sunrise’ where we come together once a month and watch the sun come up and eat breakfast together,” Lemus said. “This is the start of a new day,  a new year, a new us, and I want it to be a very significant, very metaphorical kind of moment.”

Sarah Sherwood ’20 paints bandannas for the upcoming choir camp.

Many students noticed a disconnect between last year’s directors and the student body. There was a lack of communication between the two groups which led to frustration that caused change and cooperation to come to a halt.

“The officers are trying to make sure that it’s a smooth transition [between leadership],” Student Council Representative Sejal Jain ‘20 said. “They want to make sure that it’s going to be so that the choir students have more of an opinion and they can provide more insight into what they want and it’s not just what the choir directors want.”

One of the program’s main focuses this year is to unite the choirs as one solid unit rather than individual classes. Students are hoping that under the new leadership, they can continue to grow not only as individual singers and choirs, but also as a program and family.

“I think this year we are really trying to form a solidarity between all the choirs and make sure it’s Westwood Choir, not Chamber Choir [versus] Treble Choir or Mixed Choir,” Nagle said. “We are trying to get everyone together and I think that’s a really good thing.”

Both students and staff have high hopes for what the program will achieve and continue to accomplish from this fresh start.

“Watch out for Westwood Choir,” Lemus said. “I have a really good feeling about us and where we are going, and I want to come back when I’m long gone and in college and studying to be a choir director. I want choir to be the coolest group of kids in school.”