ChildrenSong of New Jersey

 

        ChildrenSong of New Jersey, directed by Polly Murray, is a choral music education and performance program based in Haddonfield, New Jersey.  Established in 2000, the program serves 110 children in three choirs between the ages of 8 and 17 from Camden, Burlington, and Gloucester counties. The organization’s mission is to provide quality vocal music instruction with the goal of attaining the highest level of artistic excellence in choral music performance. Recent performances include Washington National Cathedral, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, South Jersey Performing Arts Center, Atlantic City Convention Center, and Canterbury Cathedral. The Choir has performed with the Haddonfield Symphony, Academy of Vocal Arts, Sounds of Liberty Chorus,  and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Concert Choir recorded a treble version of Elton John’s Rocket Man to be sold with a children’s book about legendary runner Steve Prefontaine and recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a commission based on a chorister’s poem entitled Together in Song. ChildrenSong boasts an annual outreach program, Songfest, where over 300 young singers share in a day of music-making from all over the state of New Jersey. The program includes study of a country and its music, an ethnic dance, and ends in a performance at a local high school.

Polly Murray – Founding Artistic Director

           Polly Murray is an accomplished choir director and music teacher in the Camden County area and the Founding Artistic Director of ChildrenSong of New Jersey. Mrs. Murray is also an Elementary and Middle School Vocal Music Specialist on the faculty of the Haddonfield School District, where she teaches Kodály and Orff-Schulwerk-based classroom music and chorus. 

            Mrs. Murray received her Bachelor of Music degree from Temple University, Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, and has pursued post-graduate work at Westminster Choir College. She has completed certification levels in Kodály and Orff-Schulwerk, and three levels of Choral Music Experience. 

            She has been repeatedly featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Camden County Courier-Post as an outstanding music teacher in the Greater Philadelphia region. She has also received numerous awards for teaching, including Partners in Education Golden Apple Teacher Award for Camden County, Outstanding Music Educator award from Merchantville Elementary School, the New Jersey Symphony Master Teacher Award, the Markeim Art Center’s Applause Award in Music for contributions to the arts in South Jersey, and most recently was awarded a grant from NJMEA to incorporate technology in the music classroom.  In 2007, she won a teacher fellowship award from the Geraldine Dodge Foundation for study at the Kodály Institute in Kecskemet, Hungary for the Summer Institute Program.

            In addition to teaching, Mrs. Murray has presented workshops in elementary classroom and choral music at the New Jersey Music Educator’s State Conference, New Jersey Education Association State Conference, Rowan University, Pennsylvania Orff-Schulwerk Association, and for the New Jersey ACDA Summer Conference. She has also served as the Guest Conductor for the 2005 ACDA New Jersey Elementary Honor Choir and 2001 South Jersey Elementary Festival Chorus. 

 

You may visit their website at: http://www.childrensong.org/

The Fort Wayne Children’s Choirs

 

The Fort Wayne Children’s Choir is recognized as one of the finest choirs in the nation because of the excellence of its musical education, the diversity of its membership and the quality of its contributions to the community’s cultural life.

 

The Fort Wayne Children's Choir offers a performance-based program which strongly emphasizes developing music literacy and appreciation through choral literature. The choir is organized into seven levels of curriculum, with auditioned singers placed in a choir level based on their musical skill, growth and development. Each choir includes a strong focus on team-building, self-discipline and positive creative expression.

 

In 1973, Jocelyn Basse created the Children of Peace Choristers to meet the need for an extra-curricular choral opportunity for area youth. Incorporated in 1984 as the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir (FWCC), the choir  has expanded to nearly 300 singers from 85 schools. Subsequent conductors/directors of the Fort Wayne Children’s Choirs include Ty Mazgig and Fred Meads.

 

FWCC members not only gain exceptional music skills, but learn about history, culture, foreign language, poetry, self-esteem, team-building and leadership. Singers are brought together from numerous backgrounds to achieve a common goal—artistic and educational excellence.

 

The mission of the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir is to provide a choral program exemplifying artistic and educational excellence for children from diverse backgrounds. The Fort Wayne Children’s Choir contributes to the community’s cultural environment by providing opportunities to experience the unique beauty of professionally trained young voices.

 

Visit the FWCC website at: http://www.fwcchoir.org/

 

2012 marks the seventh year the Ft Wayne Children’s Choirs have attended NCSICA! We welcome them again!

 

Capital City Girls Choir (CCGC) is a vocal and music training program for girls from Raleigh, North Carolina and the surrounding communities.

CCGC is associated with the community outreach program of the School of Music at Meredith College.  

The three choirs of the organization are open to singers from ages nine through eighteen. Capital City Girls Choir has performed at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the White House, the Washington National Cathedral, the Crescent City Choral Festival, Canterbury and London, England, Salzburg and Vienna, Austria, and at various venues in Caen, the Loire Valley, Normandy and Mont St Michel, France and British Columbia. In 2002, CCGC was featured as the Honor Choir at the Children in Harmony Festival at Walt Disney World.  In the summer of 2004, they performed John Rutter's Mass of the Children, which was conducted by the composer. In June 2006, the Girls Chorale sang in New Orleans at the Crescent City Choral Festival and in May 2007, the Girls Chorale returned to Florida to participate at the Children in Harmony Festival.  Choir members have performed with other such noted conductors as Jean Ashworth Bartle, David Brunner, Joan Gregory, Barbara Tagg, Z. Randall Stroope, Lynn Gackle, and Henry Leck. 

 

Amy Brock Davis is in her second year as Associate Conductor for the Girls Chorale. She received a BA from Meredith College in 1992 and MM in Choral Directing from Appalachian State University. Davis is a National Board Certified Teacher specializing in early adolescence through young adulthood choral music. She has taught in middle and high schools in Roanoake Rapids and Durham and was the co-director of DPS Spotlight Singers. Summers find her coordinating middle school activities for the North Carolina Summer Institute in Choral Art in Boone, NC. While a student at Meredith, she was an assistant to Page and the Girls Chorus.