The Cupertino Courier

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Erin Paul took over this year as teacher of Monta Vista's coed choir.

Changing Their Tunes

New teacher brings new style to Monta Vista's voice

By Katherine Petersen

The coed choir at Monta Vista High School will have a new teacher, a new look and a new name this year. Erin Paul, who directs the group formerly known as the Madrigals, will bring her own conducting and musical style to the performing choir.

The group will sing a variety of songs, including jazz and American folk musical numbers, spirituals, traditional Christmas carols and Broadway show tunes.

"The guys are doing some barbershop quartet music. It's going to be a lot of fun," Paul said. Many of the choir's numbers are sung a cappella, but Paul has introduced a piece from Schindler's List in Hebrew and Yiddish that will have the accompaniment of a violinist from the school's orchestra.

Monta Vista's other coed choir, Variations, has also disappeared during this year's music department restructuring. Shari Summers, who directed Variations, will now work with an all-girls group called Ariosa.

Paul and her students will hold a meeting Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. in the Associated Student Body Chambers at the school to explain to the community why the group is breaking tradition and changing its name. The high school is located at 21840 McClellan Road in Cupertino.

"We want to let people know that we're retiring the name, the Madrigals, and why," Paul said. "This public forum will give people the chance to voice any concerns they might have."

With the departure of the Madrigals' longtime director, Jack Lindsay, during the middle of last year, many students lost interest in the group. The Madrigals, created more than 20 years ago, used to sing only madrigals, unaccompanied early Renaissance music, but had gradually expanded its repertoire. Yet Lindsay still sprinkled madrigals throughout their concerts.

Gone along with Lindsay are the group's traditional Renaissance costumes. The guys wore knickers and tights, always in black and white, while the girls wore long, formal dresses.

"They were absolutely beautiful," Paul said. The new costumes haven't been unveiled yet.

Without Lindsay as their leader, students expressed that they were ready for a changing of the guard.

"Turnout was low for Madrigals tryouts last year, and I think a lot of that was out of respect for Jack and what he meant to the group," Summers said.

Paul selected 13 girls and 12 boys out of the more than 100 students who auditioned for the new choir.

"We look for students who are really dedicated and interested in music," Paul said. "We also look for people who have a natural leaning toward dance, but there's more time to learn dance steps because most of the choreography is in the spring. They have to be able to sing the minute they walk in the door."

More girls try out than boys, which is part of the reason Summers developed an all-girls choir instead of a second coed group, although there isn't a shortage of guys who audition.

"There's a good 30 or 40 guys who like to sing," said Rohig Gupta, a senior. "There's not really a jock issue or that we're going to look gay or anything. When you can sing well, people respect that."

Natali Minassian, a senior, tried out for Madrigals two years ago to gain experience so she wouldn't be as nervous her senior year. She's worked toward gaining a spot in the school's coed choir since her freshman year. Minassian also takes voice lessons and sings in her church choir.

"I've been impressed with the performing choir since the first time I saw them perform," she said. "They looked like a tight-knit group, and I wanted to be a part of it."

For Minassian, it's a time for work and fun. She meets new people who share the goal of creating a high-quality choir.

The group is just getting to know each other, but deeper bonds will form by Christmas, when the choir begins its multitude of performances, Gupta said. One year the Madrigals had 90 concerts, Paul said.

The group is focusing on blending, so the sound of the choir is like that of a single voice. "You don't want one voice sticking out from the rest of the group," Minassian said.

By the time they hit the stage, they'll sound great, Gupta said.

Gupta, who is also vice president of the senior class, took choir his freshman year, partly because he thought it might be fun and partly because he'd heard it was an easy A.

"It turned out I loved to sing," he said. "I was in Variations last year, and it was an awesome experience. I really like singing, and I love the sound of the choir when they come together as one voice."

Dancing isn't his forte, but he can do it, he said. "I'm much more into the singing aspects of the choir and making friends."

The group, which will have a new name after the Oct. 6 meeting, will perform throughout the community especially around Christmas, Paul said.

Several concerts are already booked at senior centers, Rotary clubs and private parties. The group charges $250 per concert.

The coed choir will hold its first concert Oct. 13 at Monta Vista High School. They will next perform a fundraising concert at Quinlan Community Center Nov. 9.

"It's a concert and dessert evening put on by the parents of the kids in my group," Paul said. Ariosa, the all-girls choir, will also participate in the Quinlan event.

The money raised from concerts will go toward their spring tour, an eight-day Hawaiian cruise.

"We will sing on the boat, in schools we visit and in the museums we go to," Paul said. "We sing everywhere we go."

The coed choir meets five days a week during a 50-minute period, but puts in extra time outside of class, Paul said. Students sometimes stay after school to work on songs or dance steps, and sopranos, altos, tenors and basses practice in sections on Sundays.

"In Variations, sometimes groups of us would be working at school until almost midnight, trying to get the right sound," Gupta said.

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