Karen Nevins, M.A. in Performance
"Music is like a feather on the breath of God" (Hildegard von Bingen)

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Music feeds the soul and clears the mind.  It provides sanction and promotes creativity. In today's struggle to preserve music and the arts, changing curriculum requirements steadily challenge us to stand firm in support of the arts for generations to come. As school music programs are being cut (and even college music degree programs are being cut!!) I look at my own life and the lives of my children to ask, "what would life have been without our music?" While I sang my first performance at age five at my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary, I studied instrumental music more seriously through middle school and high school. Instrumental music and associated achievements were beautifully gratifying, but eventually my appreciation for poetry and the harmonies of voice drew me toward  choral music. Ultimately, choral music allowed me to develop beautiful texts through music, synthesizing a higher art form.

Unlike the handheld instrument, the voice is God given and most unique. It must be gently nurtured for a healthy mastery of resonance. The art of beautiful singing is truly scientific. The drive to sing well requires a deep musical passion and tenacity. A singer's goal is to develop maximum resonance.  This skill requires a the pursuit of excellence with a drive for the clarity of hard (healthy) onset and resonant perfection. When nurtured and cultivated, the voice is an instrument we can carry with us throughout a lifetime. Why else aside from utter passion for putting text to music would a thirty-eight year old mother of three children have exhausted all musical options at church and in the community to find herself pursuing a 5-1/2 year degree program at age 38? Fulfilling my life's dream of making beautiful music allowed me to share my passion and inspire my students and sing with my children and my grandchildren. Any child who feels emotionally fed by his/her music should be encouraged to do the same--and hopefully at a younger age than I!! 

Today and throughout history, our society utilizes music to celebrate every life event. In fact, music has existed in every documented historical culture as a vital means of cultural expression and communication. In medieval times, music was NOT taught as one might think--with Reading and Language. In the earliest  ancient educational curriculums, music was taught as a mathematical science with astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic. After all, music is the science of sound and requires the application of precise mathematics. Because vocal music utilizes text, it also supports improved reading skills, expressive phrasing and is integral to a fuller understanding of syllabic stress through cognitive rhythmic subdivision. Additionally, the articulation of all cultural languages are utilized in choral/vocal music.

Choral music is the one elective that permits hands-on integration of the science of voice (anatomy), acoustics and sound (physics), mathematics through rhythmic counting and cognitive subdivision, classic and contemporary poetry, English and all cultural languages, history and trends through the ages, varied cultures, the application of the International Phonetic Alphabet for unification of vowels, rhythmic application of the text and syllabic stress, improved speech articulation, recognition of historical Italian musical terms, cultural dialects, phrase expression and dynamic sensitivity, tone painting, cognitive multi-tasking, muscular/physical exhertion through bocal and pharyngeal soft-tissue coordination, coordinated breathing and oxygenation, and rhythmic movement. Music in the competitive performance style also teaches significant life skills, self-respect, and the gratification of reward for commitment toward the team effort. Over the decades, music that was once identified and taught as a science or math, is considered an elective today. Interestingly, for many students it is often their music class that brings them to the school each day.

As state mandates override our childrens' choices for electives with changing curriculum, I can still recall how a single piece of music or a beautifully tuned chord peaked the sensitivity in me, bringing tears to my eyes as a young musician in band and choir. In my precious Interlochen Arts Academy All-State experience as a high school sophomore, the haunting tones of a bassoon playing in a nearby woods impressed a lasting memory that I will carry to my grave. Likewise, my daughter, Heather, says her State Honors Choir experience changed her life.

Today's young people experience many inner struggles. It is my hope that when my students enter my classroom, they will become capable of leaving their personal struggles outside the choir room doors. With this, they will hopefully allow our beautiful texts and expressive music to provide them a better sense of inner tranquility and aesthetic accomplishment. Music should provide increasingly greater personal fulfillment and an appreciation for the importance of keeping music in the school for future generations. I've been told by many adults that their high school music experiences are the memories they hold most dear to their hearts into adulthood. Why then, do we music educators find ourselves struggling to assure our music programs survive? If you support the performing arts and the fine arts, recognizing the importance including these experiences in the education of our youth, please do speak out to your politicians in support of the arts.

Below are my vocal/choral clinician and adjudication offerings:

• Assurance for developing healthy vocal technique
• Veteran Choral Adjudication and Clinician Specialist;
• Private and group instruction
• English and Foreign Language Diction Specialist.
• International Phonetic Alphabet used for vowel modification and healthier tone
• Veteran Vocal Solo Clinician Specialist
• Sensitive musical interpretation
• Choral and Solo sightreading
• Church Choir Clinician

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