Rural and Community Art Project Grant

The goal of the Boundary Waters Choral Festival is to build the love for choral singing and to provide a situation that allows for students to be set up to succeed in this endeavor. We set as goals for the students are:exposure to professional musicians, enhanced vocal techniques, new friendships and a renewed enthusiasm for choral music. Our goals for the high school instructors include: to provide collaboration between teachers and Festival staff, to provide a round-table discussion to address concerns the teachers may have, and opportunities for the high school choral directors to observe and learn new teaching techniques from the Festival staff. Our goals for the communities involved are: To be able to attend a high quality choral concert, to take pride in their students and to witness what cooperation can achieve. Questionnaires will be available in the lobby for the audience. Questionnaires will be sent to each staff member, choral director, and students to evaluate what we can improve upon.We also provide a DVD of the Festival so each choir can critique their performance and the mass choir. The Festival staff also receives the DVD to evaluate the final concert with an eye for refinement. After each Festival I request feedback from the students, teachers and the Festival Staff. I love reading these comments. It lets me know what we are getting right (like the students use of the words: community, learning, sharing, appreciated and family) and what we can improve on. My favorite response this year (2018) was from a charter school in Tower, MN. "We are a small choir and are all very close and are used to only having the 11 of us and hearing the same 11 voices every day. When we go to the Festival we feel comfortable because we are still with each other and DR. Olson, Prof. Mokole, Prof. Pierce, and Prof. Inselman are very welcoming to everyone and do their best to better us all. It is a new experience for the new members of our choir, at first they are usually nervous about it because there will be a lot of people but once we get there all the nerves go away and we have a blast. The Choral Festival gives us something to look forward to all year because every time we go it turns out to be even better than the last time." Students of Vermilion Country School.