When Janice Chapin, the choir director at High School South, and Mary Jacobsen, the choir director at High School North, wanted to “beef up” their high school programs, they joined forces with Paul Chapin, Janice’s husband and the elementary vocal music teacher at Princeton’s Riverside School for 23 years.##M:[more]##
Four years ago they created an intensive summer program through the West Windsor-Plainsboro Community Education Department. “Most of the students are from West Windsor, Plainsboro, and Princeton,” says Paul Chapin. “Those are the three schools we focus on.”
Two sessions of the two-week course for serious singers from high school sophomores to college freshman are held at High School North. Sessions are Monday to Friday, June 23 to July 7, and July 14 to July 25, 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. The cost is $650 per session. Students may take two sessions.
Every day students have a group voice class, a music theory class, a and sight singing class. They also have two private lessons per week and a recital on the last day of the program. Their accompanist for the past two years is Joshua Suslak, a senior at High School South.
“We’ve had some folks go on to enter the music field,” says Paul Chapin. Esther Holland, a graduate of South, is a voice music education major at University of Delaware, where she is a junior. She recently performed with the school’s choir at the American Choral Director Association in national convention in Hartford, Connecticut. The same choir received first place in an international choir competition held in Estonia.
“We were trying to keep choral singers involved over the summer,” he says. “Both Mary and Janice were looking for a way to build choral leadership within their choir so that there were a handful of students who had been singing all summer.”
The program presents the students with vocal leadership skills to help move choirs forward through the year. “The most important skills that students pick up is the leadership sense and how to put your sound out there — right or wrong,” says Chapin. “We want them to have the courage to be outstanding musicians and lead others to do the same.”
— Lynn Miller
Summer Vocal Institute, High School North, Plainsboro, 609-443-5760.
