STRONG VOICE • STRONG MIND • STRONG SPIRIT CHESTER CHILDREN’s CHORUS ANNUAL REPORT 2019–2020 THE CCC MUSIC PROGRAM–LOVE & PRACTICE THE CCC’s 25tH SEASON: Our abbreviated season (July 2019–mid-March 2020) was our most productive and refined ever, with the children learning and performing a wealth of challenging, culturally significant, and stylistically diverse music. OUR BEST EVER... Together, we had many impressive musical triumphs and remarkable moments. ● Messiah: By March, we were ready to AND THEN OUR MOST CHALLENGING perform eleven movements—And the Glory, O Thou, For Unto Us, Glory to God, He Shall In the nine months Feed, Behold the Lamb, Surely, Hallelujah, Since by Man, Worthy is the Lamb, and before the pandemic, Amen. Except for the Hallelujah Chorus, the our CCC children music was unfamiliar to our students, who learned more music, often asked if we could, instead, sing Mozart’s sang more beautifully Requiem. To facilitate learning Messiah, and confidently, and the Concert Choir practiced hundreds of practiced more math than sight-reading exercises in the primary keys of Messiah, and by February, many of the in any previous season. children could read most of the final Amen INSIDE: The children and staff were chorus. By early March we were aggressively thriving in a wonderful cycle polishing in rehearsals, with our students 2 Music Program of practice, success, and pointing out passages that needed more work and asking for ‘do-overs.’ In the final 3 Math Practice Program pride, which fueled the desire to practice even more. Optimism permeated the entire program. Our students sessions before the dress and concert, we 4 Summer Learning Program conquered difficult music and sang their most polished performances, and they were prepared, excited, and proud of our accomplishment. 5 Supporters learned math in leaps and bounds. Fittingly, our 25th year was our best. ● Air: Bach’s sublime Air is part of his Third During our December concerts, the children Then, with the pandemic, the killing of unarmed Black men and women, and ● Bohemian Rhapsody: We performed Queen’s Orchestral Suite. When the children first experienced their first rock concert moment as 10 Financials ensuing protests throughout the country, our anniversary year became our most Bohemian Rhapsody seven times last season, listened to an instrumental recording in the audience waved their cell phones in the followed by seven standing ovations. The challenging. All rehearsals and concerts were cancelled, and our wildly successful September, they immediately appreciated its air during the song. students spent most of the 2019 Summer beauty—Air’s long expressive melody and Math Practice Program was reduced to a few children with sporadic online ● Bennie and the Jets: The older boys looked Program fine-tuning the exotic harmonies perfectly pointed bass line. After a month at me with blank stares when I asked if they attendance. Like you, we were frightened, angry, lost. and creating the choreography. In rehearsals, of rehearsing, we sang through Air for the knew the Elton John song. I played the classic Our Virtual Summer Program (July ’20) marked a turning point for CCC, helping our advanced students took great pleasure first time... and then the children burst into live recording for them, and by the first time us discover what is possible in the face of our limitations. It was, in a sense, a long in pointing out mistakes in my transcription. spontaneous applause and cheers. Elton sings, “Bennie—Bennie, Bennie and the CCC practice session. This fall, with in-person, outdoor rehearsals resuming and fifty Sometimes they were actually right, but in their teenaged brains, they were always right. ● At Night/At Dawn: Swarthmore professor Jets,” the boys were moving their heads to the students participating in our online math program, the children are returning, and our and composer Tom Whitman ’82 wrote beat in that subtle and perfect way that only collective optimism is blossoming. At Night/At Dawn especially for our 25th beautiful Black teen boys move. anniversary. The music is filled with unfamiliar Eventually the world will heal. We will sing for you again and you will cheer ● The Love You Save: In my humble and intervals, dissonances, and rhythms. It is wildly for our beautiful Chester children. Together with you, we will continue to completely biased opinion, our cover of a difficult piece, and the students were not provide our children with a community that fosters artistry, academic achievement, this Jackson Five favorite is better than the immediately keen to learn it. By mid-fall, they and shared humanity. original. After learning and performing it, were singing it during the van rides to and our children love this song as much as their from rehearsals. parents and grandparents do. ● Let It Be: Before the middle schoolers began It was CCC’s most remarkable season of music learning Let It Be, I told them that they were making, filled with our children learning and JOHN ALSTON going to learn the greatest song ever written. loving some of the best classical and popular ANNUAL REPORT CREDITS: Executive and Artistic Director They didn’t believe me. After two sessions, music ever written. Love and practice make Design: Karlyn Rosen Aires ’87 they asked to sing it at every rehearsal, and excellence—and really good singing. Photography: John F. Wehmiller ’66, now they love Let It Be as much as you do. Laurence Kesterson, and CCC Staff 2019-2020 CHESTER CHILDREN’S CHORUS ANNUAL REPORT 2 THE CCC MATH PRACTICE PROGRAM LEAPS FORWARD THE 2019 CCC SUMMER LEARNING PROGRAM Middle and High School Students: CCC’s Math Practice Program Impressive Progress Every CCC year begins with the Summer Learning Program, (MPP) took a giant step Thirty-four middle and high school students CCC’s 6-week comprehensive arts and academic enrichment day camp, held forward this year. The results participated in our MPP this year. Five were on the campus of Swarthmore College. eleventh and twelfth graders, who prepared have been phenomenal! for the SAT. The twenty-nine younger students The Summer Learning Program (SLP) is the After three years of developing the program each worked one-on-one with a Swarthmore entry point for new Training Chorus members as an individualized tutoring program for College student math coach. A cohort of (rising third graders). Importantly, the SLP serves middle and high school students, we began fifteen was assessed in both September and as an intensive community-building period for providing foundational group math instruction December, using ixl.com. On this assessment, the entire Chorus, as being together every day to our youngest students—our third graders. a total score of 750 indicates grade-level skills builds trust, solidifies relationships, and creates a Meanwhile, we continued to offer MPP to our appropriate for the middle of seventh grade; foundation for the coming year. middle and high schoolers, and through the hard this cohort’s average score in September was One hundred children, ages 8-18, attended work of CCC Lead Math Teacher Kevin Downs, Last fall, twelve CCC students participated in long lesson included two playful activities that only 480. In other words, our students’ math our SLP in 2019, with six of the older teens we began a more thorough documentation of our first year of math practice for third graders. provided practice as well as snapshots of the knowledge was below the fifth-grade level, employed as counselors. The heart of the MPP’s positive results. They each completed a ten-question assessment students’ progress: approximately three years behind. program revolves around Chorus rehearsal, but of their math fluency that included basic addition ● “Number of the Day” focused on place value We then individualized the curriculum our other offerings were highly diverse. Focused Third Grade: Early Intervention and subtraction, knowledge of place value, and and number sense. for each student based on their September on enrichment, 2019 SLP activities included a After witnessing how intensive support for the their number sense—that is, their understanding ● “Puzzle of the Day” included word problems, assessment results. After just three months combination of core and elective classes: older students remediates the gaps in their math of how numbers work. Of the twelve children, ten fractions, or multiplication. of twice-weekly sessions with their individual ● Chorus Rehearsal comprehension caused by years of ineffective were not able to complete more than five ques- In October, each student had earned at coaches, our older students achieved an ● Music Theory class for Concert Choir members math instruction in school, we decided to tions. Some simply did not know the answers, least one perfect score on these activities! Each average total score of 570, indicating nearly a (high school students and also middle school proactively address these crippling gaps by while others were too intimidated to persist. student’s average success with the fall curriculum year’s growth. This impressive improvement boys whose voices have changed) starting a supplementary math program for Throughout the fall, the group met with was also calculated. Over half of the group manifested across all six math content areas— ● Piano and voice lessons our youngest students. two math teachers twice weekly. Each hour- earned 85% or higher, and two more earned numbers and operations; algebra and algebraic ● Math instruction and practice 70-80%. thinking; fractions; geometry; measurement; ● Science for Kids—an inquiry-based science We gained two additional third graders in the and data, statistics and probability. program, including lab work and individual spring semester, as the group focused on fluency In the final quarter of the fiscal year, we research projects, designed and facilitated by with math facts. Students worked at their own offered MPP as a remote learning program in Swarthmore College faculty and students pace, beginning with the lowest numbers and response to COVID.