Community Arts Support Grant
ACHF Arts Access
The Artistic Staff expects to establish a clear structure for a Student Leadership Team that meets regularly, is sustainable, and assists in organizational development. Increased interaction and shared experiences between all members of varied singing abilities will take place. A scheduled increase in the number of performances and collaborations during the upcoming season will increase our visibility and gain more audience recognition. The number of young singers auditioning for a spot in Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota continues to increase each year, with the number of males completely surpassing any other previous year. We hope to see more young high school men audition for a spot in our Mixed Chorale. Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota will be continuing its goal of commissioning a new work each season, thus adding a quality piece of repertoire to the choral world. By surveying our audiences at each Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota-sponsored concert, we anticipate the outcome and feedback will allow us to plan future concerts, while making sure that our mission is being met, and the community is satisfied with the level of choral music that is being offered by our organization. Conducting a Women’s Choir Festival will meet a need in the community as there are currently no all-day festivals for high school girls in Central Minnesota.The primary focus of the Student Leadership Team would be to assist the conductors in making sure that their peers (singers) are satisfied with how the choir is functioning, as well as making sure that the choirs are operating cohesively. The purpose is to develop leaders within Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota and offer a positive environment where high school youth can go above and beyond “just singing.” The conductors and Student Leadership Team members would meet regularly to discuss the atmosphere of the choirs as well as any concerns. The Student Leadership Team would meet one last time at the end of the season to assess the year and effectiveness of having a student-led team. At the end of the season, we hope to observe an increase in the number of Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota singers who wish to be a part of the Student Leadership Team. As the community becomes more aware of our program, we are able to measure the number of collaboration requests from the local area as well as into the Twin Cities metro. We hope to continue to see an increase in the number of young singers auditioning each year. This past year, we saw the highest number of high school males auditioning for a spot in our Mixed Chorale choir. We had to turn some away to keep the choir balanced, which was a first. Many supporters – directors and singers - were excited about the possibility of adding a second group to our organization, as evidenced by the number of women who auditioned. We can continue to evaluate our two ensembles by the number of registered auditions. As our current singers have positive experiences while being a part of the Youth Chorale, they are ambassadors to others in their schools, all while promoting an interest in Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota. Last year’s commissioned piece was met with great excitement by our singers and made its world premiere debut during our solo concert at the Paramount Theatre. This year, well-known composer Joshua Shank will be composing a piece for our choirs and we plan to perform his composition more than once next year, but also keep it in our repertoire for use in the future. By using an online and paper format to survey our audiences at each Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota-sponsored concert, we will measure and evaluate the feedback which will allow us to plan future concerts, while making sure that our mission is being met, the community is satisfied with the level of choral music that is being offered by our organization, and the likelihood that audiences will return in the future. Conducting a Women’s Choir Festival will meet a need in the community as there are currently no all-day women’s choir festivals for high school girls in Central Minnesota. We will evaluate the success of this festival by singer attendance, participation in sectionals and group rehearsals (both directors and singers), size of audience at the end-of-festival concert, and using online and paper formats to survey festival participants.
The Artistic Staff established a clear structure for the Student Leadership Team where members met monthly with Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota staff to discuss the atmosphere of the choirs. They assisted the conductors in making sure that singers were satisfied with how the choir was functioning throughout the season, as well as making sure that the choirs were operating cohesively. The purpose was to develop future leaders within Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota and in their communities, as well as offer a positive environment where high school youth could go above and beyond “just singing.” The Student Leadership Team met one last time at the end of the season to assess the year and effectiveness of having a student-led team. At the end of the season, we observed an increase in the number of Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota singers who applied to be a part of the Student Leadership Team for the upcoming season. A scheduled increase in the number of performances and collaborations during the season increased our visibility and gained more audience recognition. More collaborations were discussed, as other arts groups were seeking out Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota for future projects. The number of singers interested in learning more about Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota, as well as those auditioning for a spot, increased, especially the number of younger singers in 9th grade. Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota continued its goal of commissioning a new work, thus adding a quality piece of repertoire to the choral world. By using online and paper surveys for our audiences at each Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota-sponsored concert, we were able to discover the level of community satisfaction while making sure that our mission was still being met. The surveys showed that the community was satisfied with the level of choral music being offered by our organization and that they would likely return for future concerts. A part-time Executive Director has given Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota a more solid footing administratively, thus allowing both the Artistic Director and Women’s Chorale Conductor to focus more on music and building upon relationships with composers and local musicians and arts groups.
Other, local or private