2020 Elementary and Junior High Honor Choir Festival CANCELLATION
Dear Elementary and Junior High Directors,
It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you of the cancelation of the NJACDA 2020 Elementary and Junior High Honor Choir Festival. We really, really hoped a fall performance might be possible, but with so many uncertainties we have decided that at this point it just is not responsible to try to move forward. We certainly wish we could all come together and sing, but the safety of our singers, teachers, and audience members is of most importance. The checks that were submitted for the registration fee ($25 per student) were not cashed. Please let us know if we can shred your check, or if your district requires that it be sent back to the business office by filling out the attached Google Form by May 15th if possible.
That being said, we do wish to honor your accepted students. We will be creating certificates for all of the students who were accepted and we will send those to you when they are finished. We would also like to honor any 6 year members of the choir, so please let us know if you have a student who was a member every year from 4th grade through 9th grade, this year included. We also have thought about creating a video of the directors singing together in virtual choir style, or saying short, uplifting messages to the singers.
We have decided not to do a virtual choir of students. As nice of an idea as it is, we just didn’t want to add the burden to you all to teach the music and collect recordings, when we know that the experience of singing your part by yourself is not nearly as fulfilling as singing together as I group. We have attached a letter that you can send to your students. We would like to encourage you to do some sort of virtual meetup with your accepted students and make a connection with them. Tell them it’s going to be okay, remind them to keep singing, and ensure them that we will all sing again together the second it is safe to do so!
If you have ideas for our director video, please reach out! We will reach out with the certificates as well as more information about the video we would like to create. I’ve included a Google Form where you can indicate your interest in being a part of the video. We certainly don’t wish to overwhelm anyone!
Please stay healthy and try to remain positive. The world will sing together again. I’ve found it helpful to write lists of what I CAN do to keep my program running, rather on focusing on what I CANNOT do.
Musically and with tremendous gratitude,
Kaitlyn Reiser and Pamela Crockett
ELEMENTARY STUDENT LETTER – FESTIVAL CANCELED
JH STUDENT LETTER – FESTIVAL CANCELED