By Jane Ramseyer Miller,  One Voice Mixed Chorus

I just spent the morning working with students at Gordon Park High School (University Ave in St. Paul) in preparation for One Voice concerts there next month. This first rehearsal was a little chaotic. When I announced that I conduct a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight allies chorus, the room got  silent and then one student said in a loud voice, “WHAT did you say?”   There were a few giggles but after getting the word across we were able to move on to making some music. This is a school that has never had any sort of music program so it was rough… but they LOVED the Boomwhackers and percussion instruments.

Finally we resorted to an improvised boomwhacker and percussion composition that included spoken word. I had each student create a “ME” poem  – sort of like Haiku only using 2 adjectives, 3 nouns and a 4-word phrase to describe themselves. To my delight they all wrote poems AND stood to perform them during the song. Score!  I Just heard from a teacher that they’re still talking about it 3 hours later.