Construction Begins!

As construction begins, we want to thank everyone for their flexibility as the dust starts to fly and we consolidate on spaces for a while.  We just finished a week of “Cut, Cap and Make Safe.”  It was a week of putting up temporary construction walls & doors in order to isolate the work areas from the useable building space.  As updates on our music spaces come in, we will keep you informed here on this blog as well as through the church e-blasts and Broadcaster newsletter.

Drawings, plans, etc. can be found here.

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Welcome To Our New Children’s Choir Director!

We are thrilled to welcome Lydia Lane Stout as our Director of Children’s Music and Worship Associate.  Lydia will direct our children’s choirs as well as work with our Chancel Choir and Joyful Ringers to help us envision collaboration opportunities with the kids!  Lydia recently received her masters in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University. While working toward her degree, Lydia directed a church choir at FCUCC Grand Ledge and two children’s choirs through the Michigan State University Community Music School, where she launched a free satellite choir program in Lansing public schools. 

After graduating from Oberlin in 2012, Lydia joined the Chicago Children’s Choir as an In-School Conductor, directing eighteen children’s choirs around the city. While in Chicago, she founded and directed common pulse, a professional vocal ensemble, as well as the Admiral Chorus, an ensemble for retired singers living at The Admiral at the Lake. In addition to her conducting positions, Lydia sang with Peregrine Vocal Ensemble and Wicker Park Choral Singers.

Lydia and her husband live in their Logan Square home and music studio with their cats, Wrinkle and Time. Outside of GCC, Lydia can be found directing choirs at the Youth Choral Theater of Chicago, teaching private lessons, singing in mirabai, nurturing common pulse, practicing yoga, and taking too many pictures of her cats. 

Children’s Choir Schedules, 2018-19

Our Children’s Choirs start up on Sunday, September 16!  Check out the schedules, below:

Click here for Primary Choir schedule

Click here for Voices of GCC schedule

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DON’T FORGET TO REGISTER!  IT’S EASY!

Children’s Choir online registration here

Children’s Music Update

The search for a Children’s Music Director and Worship Associate continues as we interview potential candidates next week.  Special thanks to the folks who have been working on this search – Shane Bill, Debby Fosdick, Jamie Chodoroff, Susan Johns, Debby Shellard, Guillermo Munoz Kuster, Gary Wendt and Chuck Mize.

 

Children’s choir rehearsals are scheduled to begin soon! 

Join us for the new season:

Primary Choir – Grades K-2 – 9:15-9:45a Sundays – Rm. 201 – beginning Sept. 16 (tentative)

Voices of GCC – Grades 3-8 – TBD – Rm. 201 – beginning Sept. 16 (tentative)

REGISTER ONLINE HERE

 

The “Friends of Music Fund” Thanks You!

The music ministry of GCC thrives because of donations each year to our Friends of Music Fund.  While 80% of our expenses come from the annual operating budget, up to another 20% comes from this fund, making the difference between surviving and thriving.  The Friends of Music Fund supports both our worship services and community outreach (concert series).  From hiring musicians to play in the Peace Concert and providing an honorarium to the Glenview Concert Band for the July lawn concert to purchasing folders for the Chancel Choir and gloves for the Joyful Ringers to commissioning musical works dedicated to the ministry of GCC, the Friends of Music Fund has been a vital resource for many decades.  To make a donation, simply send your gift to the GCC office clearly marked for the Friends of Music, or put a “Music Offering” envelope (found in the lobby kiosks) into the Sunday offering plates.   Thank you for your continued support!

Upcoming Summer Concerts

Join us!

The Year In Review (so far) – 2018

It has been a while since our last blog post.  From stretching ourselves to sing a mass setting in Spanish to taking the Joyful Ringers on a road trip to preparing for a major construction project, we have begun 2018 with a mighty roar!  Here are a few highlights of the first half of the year, with the promise that we’ll be back online more regularly again.

CONSTRUCTION  

Part of the plan includes moving our bell room from an unheated storage area on the 2nd floor of the transept to what is currently a stage.  It will be accessible and heated!  Additionally, thanks to the Nutting Fund, we will build an actual library to house our music collections for the first time in the history of GCC.

 

 

 

SHOWTUNE SUNDAY

We continued our tradition of “Second Easter” this year with music from Broadway musicals focused on spreading joy to our world.  What shall we do next year?

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOYFUL RINGERS ON THE ROAD

Our bell choir had the pleasure of playing during worship at Douglas Congregational UCC in Douglas, Michigan.  Our very first retreat weekend, we fell in love with this church – its congregation and minister – the towns of Douglas & Saugatuck, we gathered around the fire pit, shopped together, ate together, and got to know our fellow Joyful Ringers better than ever before.

 

 

MISA CRIOLLA

by Ariel Ramirez

The Chancel Choir, accompanied by Raices del Ande (Roots of the Andes), shared this deeply moving setting of the mass.  The worship experience this day was something we will remember for years to come.