An amazing concert!!

Yesterday was the culmination of Project 1. The Hilda Ross Glee Club and the Rotokauri Tuis, performed together in the 8 - 80 concert as part of the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival. It was a very enjoyable event, as the audience swelled to nearly 500 people!! Given the venue, I am not sure how well the people at the back were able to hear the choirs, but the level of interest shown by the attendance is potentially indicative of people's interest in intergenerational activities.

Both choirs sang well, with one or two glitches, but they slid by with little notice. The technology worked on the whole, and we did manage to get them all together at the end of the concert. Our national anthem is sung in Maori and in English, and we used a backing track that had been prepared by our Ministry of Education for use in schools. Because there was about a 30-second haka in between the two versions of the anthem, the girls were able to come down off the stage and find their buddy and stand in front of them or on their chair, if the buddy was standing. The image above was taken during rehearsal. I was thrilled beyond words with the concert!!

So much to tell you.....

At the final combined rehearsal, it was hard to get to the singing. Just 13 of the Tuis arrived at the Hilda Ross complex, it is harder for them to get: transport, parents' permission, and time out of school. But the girls who were there made the most of it. They went and viewed one of the villas in the complex and one of the serviced apartments, to see how the Glee Club live. Then we rehearsed our combined pieces, to the delight of our fan club, which swelled for this practice. Manager of the complex, Wendy, came and saw what was happening with the combined group, and was instrumental in getting the head office to print us programmes, a total of 200, which I thought was optimistic :-)

I called in at the venue two days before the concert to see that the risers were there and where the power points were for the children's sound system, and for the keyboard for the Glee Club. To my dismay there was a flat stage, accessed by four steps at one side, which meant that having th Tuis move in with the Gee Club for some of their combined songs was no longer possible. In addition there was the problem of how they were to all be seen. It was one of those late-night light-bulb moments. I set up two rows of chairs on the stage area, and one row on the floor in front. The front row of girls on the floor stood on their chairs, the second row stood on the stage and the third row stood on their chairs. It all worked, except the back row was too far away from the middle row, so the chairs were turned around to back onto the middle row, the girls stood on these to sing, and then had to 'perch' when the Glee Club did their own items, They coped remarkably well!!

The Festival organiser Sarah Beattie, did a sterling job. Helping with setting up the staging for the two choirs and then setting out the audience chairs. I don't know how it happened, but as people arrived, more chairs arrived. The helpers at the Festival are mostly volunteers, and they were fantastic! Chairs set out, and then after the concert, the chairs were all stacked and put away again, probably within 30 minutes of the concert concluding.

This coming week I will hold three focus groups: with the Tuis, with the Glee Club, and with parents of the Tuis, to see what they have said at home about the experience. I have a sense of regret now that the performance has happened.

A week to Concert

What a year it has been so far. Summer school went very well, with high positive assessment from the students on both the course and my teaching.

Project One
I met the Glee Club for their first rehearsal of the year on January 28th. and then spent ten days in Brisbane catching up with my grandson and his parents.

Today is the final combined rehearsal of the two choirs, and the children have their special friends now in the Glee Club. During these rehearsals there has been more a sense of the two choirs singing as one, rather than two choirs singing the same song. The children are gaining some of the resonance of the older singers, and the Glee Club are gaining some of the brighter tone from the children.

Tomorrow is my final rehearsal with the Rotokauri Tuis, they will rehearse more with their tutor Susanne. Glee Club will have two more rehearsals. Then we all meet at the venue at 2:00p.m. Friday, to walk through the concert, feel the acoustic by singing in the space, finalise our staging in situ, and hopefully have some time to relax before the concert commences.

Next week I will conduct focus groups with each choir, and with willing parents of the children's choir, getting feedback about what the participants have gained from this musical experience, and then get it written up and submitted for publication!!

Project Two
The contract with Ryman Healthcare is verbally agreed, and now awaiting documents to sign. Advertising has gone out to Auckland University Music Education department, and the Auckland members of NEWZATS, inviting extessions of interest to tutor the group at the Edmund Hillary Complex in Remuera.

I will

• Go and talk with the residents. and the staff, about the project.
• Get them to give ethical approval for their medical data, such as blood pressure, oxygen uptake, breath capacity, be relased to me for a before and after measure
• Get them to find someone in the village who cn be their research 'buddy' who will not be part of th singing programme, who will alos agree to the medical data being available.
• Go to their first rehearsal, introduce their tutor, and provide the initial repertoire.
• Visit with them at rehearsal every two months, giving encouragement, and making suggestions, including looking for leadership to emerge within the resident group
• Return in November to collect post-data, as well as questionnaires that they have filled out for me, and conduct a focus group where we can dialogue about the project.
• Write up the project, both for Ryman Healthcare, and for publication.

Project three
Hamilton Chorale commenced rehearsal two weeks ago, and are well into the preparation for the Celtic Connections Concert. Planned dates for this concert are May 2nd in Raglan and May 3rd in Hamilton.
Members are sourcing some dancers who would like to come and guest at this concert.

Other exciting news for Chorale is that well-known New Zealand composer David Hamilton has ageed to write a piece for us for our second concert, the them of which is: Around the World in 80 minutes

The year is well underway!!

Happy New Year and what a year it is going to be!!

It is January 1st 2010, and I have fortunately had a very relaxing Christmas break time. I teach Summer School in Tauranga January 11 - 22, which will be intense, but also very rewarding. Then:....

Project One
I am now doing final preparation for the upcoming 8 to 80 concert, which is occurring during the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival. I am going to need to prepare cds for Glee Club to learn music, as I have a trip of 10 days to Australia during our preparation time for the concert on February 26th. Primary schools are back in after the summer on February 2nd , and we will need to have at least three rehearsals with the girls and the adults together, possibly one just getting to know each other and singing for each other, so that the girls especially will be aware of how well the Glee Club can sing.

None of our photos were used for the brochure, and that is fine. For future occasions we will be proactive and make sure that we have images of high enough definition to be used for such events.
The Festival programme can be viewed here. Click on February 26th and you will see the concert advertised.

Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival

Project Two
I have had verbal agreement from Ryman Health that they will fund a year-long programme in their Edmund Hillary Village in Auckland, under my direction. I will visit the village and recruit people into the 'choir'. I will advertise and 'audition' a prospective leader for the group. I will share the programme guidelines with that person, and be available to help with repertoire, music etc. I will set up the clinical measures to be taken prior to the group commencing, and endeavour to match each participant to a non-participant in the village so that we have a comparison group. I will ensure that group participants are recruited to take on various leadership roles.I will visit the group monthly and then bi-monthy to offer encouragement and any other help, suggestions or arrangements that are appropriate.

My eldest son, who is a businessman, is advising me in the negotiations for this so that the best outcomes happen: for Ryman Health, for the participants at Edmund Hillary Retirement Complex, and for my ongoing work in this field, which is currently unique in New Zealand.

Project three
I must not forget my community choir, the Hamilton Chorale, as rehearsals commence again with them on February 10th and they need a new repertoire. The theme for the first concert is Celtic Music, which will definitely be fun!

My Mentors
I am grateful to have appointments next week with both of my two mentors: Professor Bevan Grant, who was my professor in my masters paper during the first semester 2009, and has been working in the gerontology field for decades, and Professor Stephen Clift of the Sidney de Haan Centre in England. I have spoken of Stephen before. As stated on the centre's website: "the primary aim of the Sidney de Haan Research Centre is to promote the value of Music and the arts for the wellbeing and health of individuals and communities."

Sidney de Haan Research Centre

Attention from Right, Left and Centre

While returning from a business trip to the Taranaki region on Wednesday, I received a cellphone message from Ronnie, one of the activities people at Hilda Ross. She was telling me that the Waikato Times (local newspaper) was coming the next day to take photographs of the Glee Club. I made a personal note to make sure that my appearance was not my usual rushed scruffy self.

I had a morning of meetings the next day and during one of the meetings I got a txt message from Ronnie asking me to urgently call the reporter who had interviewed the Glee Club participants the day before, which I did, gave him some more background information about what has happened in the last year, and found out what it was all about. We are to feature in the 'where are they now' column of the paper. A year ago they published an article about the release of our c.d., it will be interesting how much page space we will get in tomorrow's paper. I have also found out that the c.d. is still slowly selling from the front desk at Hilda Ross!!

In addition, urgent messages were going back and forth about information and photos for the Hamilton Summer Gardens Summer Festival promotional material. I had passed this request onto the women of the Rotokaiuri Tuis and followed the emails to find out that their photos were too low in resolution. So I asked if any of the Glee Club had a camera with good resolution and Marie went and got hers. At the end of rehearsal, (after Times photos and all) I ask the men to grab two women and find a neutral background. What a delightful scrabble, and such fun! I took photos of three trios all on different background with her camera, and then asked Harry to process it all while I went and worked with the Rest Home Singers. Harry is as close to 80 as you can be without being 80, (but I can't tell you his age.) He took Marie's camera, downloaded the photos to his computer, put them in a folder and then loaded the folder onto my 4BG memory stick, and brought it to me in the Rest Home Lounge. With the advances to this Blog site I can share with you the photos that I sent in.

Here is Harry the computer whiz, Ngaire my good friend and drinking buddy, and Elizabeth who is my associate music director.

Here is Bob, one of the newest members of the Glee Club, Betty whose husband Noel has been called the mayor, and who also worked on my kitchen 12 years ago, and Brenda who is the Glee Club librarian.

Here is Allison a newer member of Glee Club, Alex who has been Glee Club member since the beginning of the year, and Pauline who has been in Glee Club since it started.

I will be very interested in reading what they told the reporter in my absence :-)

Intergernational concert preparation underway

I met with Suzanne and Kara, the conductors of the Rotokauri Tuis (childrens' choir) on Tuesday, and we mapped out the concert which will be performed on Friday February 26th. Both choirs will sing together for six songs, and then each choir will perform two sets of songs. The Tuis will do one set of songs with their whole choir and another set with a smaller group of the senior singers, who are working on singing in parts.

Yesterday (Thursday October 22nd) I told the Glee Club about the plans for the concert. I taught them the chorus of the Kiwi Kids' Theme song, I gave them the 'When I'm 64' lyrics to work on rewriting. The Tuis will sing the original version of the song, the Glee Club will sing their version of the song. I gave Glee Club the Tui's new words to the ABBA song Honey Honey, which has turned it into a love of the product, very cleverly.

I sent an email to the Garden's Festival organiser about date, time and venue for the concert. It appears that we will have the venue we want, the Pavilion, an inside venue where the Glee Club will be able to sit for most (for some) or all (for some) of the concert. The organiser had envisaged the concert being held outside on a lawn, and that would have required amplification, chairs, etc. Watch this space, I am still thinking about how we might merge our concepts.

I have put a post on the AIRS project, a request for help about how to record this event in relation to the outcomes for both sets of participants for this process. AIRS stands for Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing. It is an exciting concept, but doesn't appear to be very active as yet. I have also joined an Ethnographic research group here in the School of Education, and will be asking them for their learned opinions as well. Furthermore I will be talking to my colleague Professor Peggy Koopman-Boyden who has been a gerontologist for some decades, and picking her brains.

In the meantime, I go next Tuesday to work vocally with the senior singers at Rotokauri (ages 10 & 11) (a whole new way of using senior!!)and start talking with them about the project. I will continue to work with Glee Club, which now has 31 singers!!!

October 1st

What a busy four weeks it has been for me, with additional classes to teach, and additional admin to see to. The Celebrating Age group did not happen, due to lack of interest. One person turned up the first time, nobody turned up the second time, and one person turned up the third time. It is either the wrong day, or time of day, or perhaps the wrong time of year.

However the Hilda Ross Glee Club is growing by leaps and bounds. I held a 'come and talk to me' meeting to which all of the villa residents were invited. Five members of Glee Club were at the meeting, and they answered questions, while I gave quotes about the researched benefits of singing. One of the delightful pieces of feedback that has occurred is that some people think that they are not good enough now that the Glee Club sound so good. As a result we had six new people join us, and our roll is now 26, with 6 men!!

Alex and Tui and Brian accompanied me as I went to have an interview on Hamilton Community radio. Initially I was going to have 45 minutes, but then it was just over 20 minutes, so the interview with me turned into an interview about this research and the Hilda Ross Glee Club, and went very well according to those who listened. I will try to get a sound file onto this site for you to listen to the interview, if interested. I could put a link to the radio station, but given that I am the last 20+ minutes of a 2-hr recording, I don't think that is practicable.

There has been an interesting comparison for me the last two weeks. With school holidays, sickness, and grandparent responsibilities, I have had a fairly high absency rate at Hamilton Chorale Rehearsals, such that I have more people at Glee Club than I do at Chorale, for now!