This April, MPS Vocal Music Department will be presenting our 3rd biennial Vocal Arts Day (VAD). This event was born out of the traditional "All City Vocal Concert" in which all choir students in grades 5-12 participated in an evening performance.
Back in 2012, vocal music staff decided they wanted more! So we brainstormed and came up with the first Monroe Public Schools Vocal Arts Day (MPS-VAD).
This day-long event involves the traditional evening performance with choir students in grades 5-12 with the addition of special guest artists. This year's group is Three Men and a Tenor, who performed for us at the first VAD. The 2015 VAD featured Broadway vocal artists Jessica Grove and Dan Cooley.
This year, Three Men and a Tenor will perform at Monroe High School for all Monroe Public School students in grades 3 and 4. This is one of the ways we work to get younger students excited about vocal music, so that they can hopefully see themselves as vocal artists in 5th-6th grade and beyond.
Later in the day, MPS Choir students in grades 5-8 will converge on MHS to participate in three rotating sessions: vocal arts workshops, coaching with Three Men and a Tenor, and concert rehearsals. They will join MHS choir students, working in a unique mentoring process which allows younger singers to experience high school choir life. The workshops also provide students interested in Vocal Arts the chance to hear Three Men and a Tenor perform, be led in warm-ups, performance critiques, and motivating activities.
The evening concert will showcase all MPS choir groups from MMS and MHS, as well as all 5th-6th choir students from all district elementary schools as one mass choir.
The theme of this this year's VAD is Motown, and will include such favorites as I Want You Back, ABC, Can't Help Myself, My Girl, and I Got the Music in Me, to name a few.
The format of the concert allows student groups to alternate performing with Three Men and a Tenor, resulting in an exciting, fast-paced evening of beautiful vocal music! The culmination of the concert will be ALL choir students in grades 5-12 singing with Three Men and a Tenor.
Since this event involves hiring this professional performing group and contracting sound engineers, the concert is a ticketed event, unlike most MPS concerts, with limited seating. Further, several MPS vocal music teachers worked last summer to write a grant to help defray costs, and were awarded the grant!
We will also hold our 2nd biennial Hot Chocolate Bar fundraiser on Friday, February 3 from 6-8 pm in the Custer I Elementary School cafeteria. This is a fun, family-friendly event that features a hot chocolate bar, desserts, and performances by MPS Choir students throughout the evening. Tickets to the Hot Chocolate fundraiser are $5.