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To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time."
                                                                                                                          - Leonard Bernstein

Let's be honest, building a children's choir from scratch requires more than just casual interest. It requires passion. The rollercoaster ride of emotions, the highs and lows that come week in and week out are exhausting. Just when you think you are on the right path, a key chorister will drop out to play hockey, or a parent will tell you that their child can't sing on Christmas Eve. You might spend time teaching your singers to sightsing, or to figure out key signatures and the following week when you ask them to show you what they remember from the previous week, they will demonstrated that they remember absolutely NOTHING! Then there is the crushing feeling engendered by a choir that made a decent sound during rehearsal, but suddenly can't be heard during the service! Yes, creating a children's choir from the ground up can be a challenging, frustrating, exhausting and often times soul crushing endeavour.

What is needed to help you through the inevitable ups and downs of building a children's choir? The answer is simple: one needs a tremendous amount of passion for the work! You have to want to accomplish great things. You have to be positive when no one else is. You have to believe when to do so seems futile and foolish. If you aren't willing to passionately inspire your young singers, to work tirelessly to encourage them, then stop reading now. Without passion you might create a choir, but you will never build a truly great one! What do we mean by passion? Let's explore a bit deeper.

1. It is essential that you love working with children. It is essential that you believe than they can perform on the same level as adults and that they truly want to do something meaningful and magnificent.
   
2. You have to work tirelessly to make the impossible happen.
   
3. Your energy must be boundless.
4. Your choristers will mirror what you give them. If you don't provide the energy and the sense of expectation then who will?
5. Never miss the opportunity to let them know that you are glad to see them. Greet every chorister personally as they arrive. Tell them how thrilled you are to see them.
6. Remember that you will always believe in them before they believe in themselves. Find something positive to say to each singer in the course of rehearsal. It doesn't have to be profound, it just has to say, 'I saw you today and I appreciated your efforts!'
7. Always reflect positive energy. It is about building momentum towards the goal. If you don't keep the energy level high and positive then how can you expect the same from your singers.
8. Your choristers will 'read you' and if they sense you don't care, or that you are disappointed in them, then they in turn will be disappointed in themselves, or worse yet, not care.
9. Make the impossible happen each week. Give them something to feel very good about. This can be as simple as singing a verse of a hymn with the proper breathing! However, whatever the event is, make sure to praise them for their professionalism and remind them that accomplishing what they just accomplished was a very big deal.
10. Remind them constantly how proud you are of them. Tell them that they have the stuff of greatness in them.

Most of all, remember that building a quality children's program is hard work. There will be many days of struggle ahead! It will be largely discouraging before it becomes even remotely thrilling. There will be many nights when you will leave wondering why you are even bothering to attempt the task. However, if you have passion for the work, tomorrow will always be another day, one filled with promise, expectation and potentially even joy!
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In this week's blog post we thought we would begin with a bit of background on our great adventure. Our church, Metropolitan United Church in London, Ontario, Canada, is one of our country's most storied congregations. We are one of The United Church of Canada's 'cathedral' churches and we have always had a tradition of excellent music. 'Met' is the kind of church that one comes to and stays. Built in 1897, Metropolitan has only had had seven organists in its history, so it is a pretty splendid place to work. With this said, in spite of always having a superb professional quality adult choir, there is absolutely no tradition of children's music at Met. Sure, we have had our share of Junior Choirs over the years, but no one ever took these very seriously. 

​This all changed eight years ago, when our new Senior Minister suggested that we might want to think about beginning a music and arts program for children in the area. After a summer of planning, the Metropolitan Church Arts and Music Program, or mCAMP as it came to be known, was born. (mCAMP still exists today and is distinct from the Metropolitan United Church Choir School, which will be speaking about in this blog. You can read more about mCAMP by clicking the following link: mcamp.org) The new program was open to all interested children between the ages of six and seventeen and included a choir component. The mCAMP choir was informally referred to as 'The Choristers' and we did our very best to encourage our participants to sing at our Sunday morning service once a month.

​However, it was difficult to get parents in an informal program to commit regularly to attending the Sunday morning services of a church that they did not belong too. In spite of having a 'choir' of roughly twenty singers, we rarely had more than ten on any given Sunday. We tried everything we could think of to generate interest! We took trips to Montreal and Toronto, we brought in visiting clinicians and held summer camps. No matter what we did we simply could not muster commitment on the part of families, and worse than this, no one seemed to see the choir as anything other than 'cute' and relatively 'unnecessary!

It was on our trip to Montreal that the seeds of our current Choir School were sown. This happened after a particularly discouraging day. As part of our time in Montreal, the choir participated in a Music Festival. During the adjudication after our performance, two of our choristers, who were tired, laid down on the stage and 'took a nap' while the adjudicator spoke! In just seconds, both of us realized that this was never going to work and that the dream of building a children's choir that performed at a high level was clearly not going to happen. We left the festival depressed and disheartened. 

The rest of the day faded in a haze of melancholy, and then somewhere around 945 there was a knock on my hotel room door. Three of our older choristers were in the hall and they asked if we could meet in Catherine's room in ten minutes. I had no idea what they were going to say, fearing the worst. We all gathered and then the most remarkable thing happened! The girls were very upset by what had happened that day - none of them had been among the nappers! - and they had a question. We took a deep breath. "Would it be possible to start a choir that was very serious, with  people who all really cared about singing and wanted to be there?" We sat silently for a moment and then....snatched from the jaws of defeat, we agreed that it seemed like a very, very good idea to us!

But as we would quickly learn, it was easier said than done...