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To close out each year, our school plans a fun field day event with options for both indoor and outdoor activities. After I complete my chaperoning duties for the potato sack races on the softball field and trivia in the gym, I always make my way to the karaoke session in the disco-lit recital hall to cheer on each brave performer…and to…SPY! “Who is singing?” Fertile ground for recruitment, right?
Last June, groups of experienced choir kids put multiple requests in the karaoke song queue. Two young baritones on the same bill thought it would be fun to enter the spotlight and sing the hook to a popular track. I didn’t recognize the students, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the performance, but once the chorus hit, I heard some solid pitch and harmony moments! My heart smiled, and then quickly sank, and I wondered, “Why don’t I already know them?”
They took their cute bow, and as they left the stage, I chased them out of the hall, asking if they had ever considered registering for our school’s choral program. What happened next was both illuminating and sad. They shot me looks of dread, a solid “no way!” and exited the conversation with a swift escape down the stairs.
As I watched them run, I was immediately consumed with guilt about what I must be doing wrong to have allowed such a perception of choir to exist at our school. I felt this, knowing that changed graduation requirements in the Chicago Public Schools have had huge impacts on music enrollment numbers throughout the district over the last several years and that parts of this issue are bigger than me. So, I’ve been spinning my wheels, trying to determine which enrollment issues are indeed systemic and which I could possibly solve with some really creative thinking.
I found myself on the verge of defeat, as I had spent the past few years trying my best to resurrect choir, planning new and exciting concerts, competing in multiple regional festivals, planning special collaborations, and sharing the groups’ work and accomplishments broadly with the student body, faculty, and families.
Interestingly, this karaoke run-in came days after I met a fine instrumentalist who confessed to me that she also loved singing but never joined the class because “choir just wasn’t for her.” Of course, I interrogated her in that moment; her reasoning included that she doesn’t read music and has never sung “classical” repertoire. If even this student, an experienced musician, was misinformed about what choir class was, how could I expect the sweet karaoke kids, not to mention students who had no previous experience in music studies, to register for a class that seemed like it was only filled with students who already identified as singers, who were unafraid of performing, and who were all natural sight-reading aficionados?
It was obvious there was a perception issue, and my focus continues to be removing choir misinformation. Becca Searns of Haley Marketing describes the disconnect between perception and reality that occurs because “you have a mental impression of something, and it defines how you see that something, regardless of the truth.”
So, what is my plan? Create new mental impressions. Here’s my short list of five recruitment experiments I plan to incorporate this upcoming school year. If you find you are dealing with any nuanced versions of what I’ve described above, I hope these can inspire some food for thought!
1) Lean hard into social media to rebrand choir. Design any posts that encourage engagement—both for current students but especially for prospective students.
Examples:
- Student introductions with quick bio/backstories that remove the idea of prerequisites to singing. Posts should be short, with editing inspired by TikTok or Instagram.
- Student polls. Ask questions the student body can answer with no prior knowledge necessary. Vote on a piece to be included in a concert.
- Student clubs or athletics can compete to get the choirs for their events. See about gaining access to the athletic calendar and coordinating with the athletic director or coach.
- Performance posts. Instead of full-length concerts, post short clips and include how to access the full concert link. Re-post student comments in your Instragram stories. This celebrates the performers, highlights positive reactions, and shows gratitude for audience engagement.
- Be intentional about your followership. Invite the directors of your feeder programs (if any) to follow your page and post messages for their students. Congratulate them on recent achievements. Invite them to school events. Get re-posted and spread your visibility exponentially.
2) Pops concerts…at the BEGINNING of the year. Leaving POPS concerts only to the end of the year misses the recruitment deadline and can reinforce the idea that pops concerts are the reward for the “burden” of working on all the other “serious” music throughout the year. To strengthen our singers’ versatility and spectrum of appreciation, we should legitimize good pop arrangements alongside other beautiful works of varied genres and time periods.
- Open the gates to the choral program by choosing rep for which your current students will have immediate buy-in. Publicize your concert program before the event to stir audience interest.
- Consider including some traditional-esque choral works that use pop/contemporary elements to introduce different choral soundscapes within familiar contexts to new audiences.
3) Program contemporary repertoire accessible to younger groups. Well-written, authentic, contemporary, especially a cappella, repertoire is impressive but often too advanced. Find rep where each line’s simplicity, layered together, results in textural excitement. This repertoire can be an inclusive entry point into singing and ensemble work.
- Resource Recommendations: A Cappella 101 by Rob Dietz and Teaching Music through Performance in Contemporary A Cappella by Marc Silverberg, J.D. Frizzell, Deke Sharon
4) Beatboxing competition/clinics. There must be vocal percussionists in the building who don’t feel they have a home. Recommendation from Rob Dietz/Ben Bram of A Cappella Academy: hold a beatboxing competition and/ or clinic to access another cross-section of the student body and welcome them to the program. If you are starting an a cappella group, it could be a great way to build excitement and your roster. If not, consider inviting vocal percussionists for special choral cameos, which may encourage future enrollment. 5) Creative extracurricular time.
- A cappella group: Student ambassadors who can engage with the school community. One of our groups made beautiful singing telegram videos for Valentine’s Day last year that received a lot of attention from the student body.
- Karaoke Club
- Choir-club exchanges. For example: Football/Dance/ Choir—maybe they can lead each other in warm-ups!
- Field trips to performances for rostered and non-rostered students, especially at the beginning of the school year.
- Lead a club that is not music-related to build relationships with another cross-section of students.
- Bring a buddy to choir! If they’ve never been to the choir room, they may never come to the choir room. Welcome visitors multiple times throughout the year and allow them to feel the joy of ensemble singing, the loving spirit of your classroom, and the comfort of another safe space in the building.
Nythia Martinez works at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, Chicago, Illinois.
