With the new SPARC classrooms open and the PAC theaters near completion, the director of Choral Activities at Bakersfield College is expanding her scope of fundraising.
Jennifer Garrett, a professor of the BC choral program, is planning and preparing a trip to Rome, Florence, and Venice, Italy for the BC Chamber Singers group for June 2015. She is also raising money for the general Choral Activities fund.
The group, the Chamber Singers, was invited to take part in the International Festival Choir that will include the choir having their own performances in Rome and Venice.
The trip will include a 13-hour flight, along with a 10- to 11-day stay in the areas that the group will be performing. The trip is an expensive one, and choral director Garrett is asking for the help of BC students and its community to ensure that each of the students will be able to make the trip.
“The group has done performances in New York, Hawaii and even Costa Rico, but this will be the first time the group will go over international waters,” Garrett said. “They will sing with other choirs from around the world in a festival concert, so they will actually sing at St. Peters Basilica. They will do a mass there at St. Peters Basilica, and sing a few other really classical pieces. And, then, there is another performance with the festival choir at a different church and they will sing more Americana and folk type pieces.”
Before becoming the BC director, Garrett was able to get a preview of the school’s singers.
“I got to work with the chamber singers one night (before becoming the director), on their music that they were doing for Carnegie Hall,” she said. “I left that rehearsal on clouds, I was like, ‘I have to do this (job),’ and so, I was really excited to get the job.”
Garrett, who was hired full time at BC in fall 2013, is already incorporating new ideas and techniques for fundraising. She utilizes the college Facebook page with a Panda Express fundraising campaign.
When asked what the importance is of the BC music program, Garrett replies, “It’s more than I could explain, I’d have to sing it to you. It’s one of those things you can’t really put into words.
“Music, for me, has been something that has carried me through my life. It’s my earliest memory, and I have had lots of health challenges in my life, and it has been pretty much how I survived them. So, I know, firsthand, the benefits that music has on peoples lives,” said Garrett.
She explained the correlation of her personal experience with the experience she hopes to bring to BC students and its community.
“It gives a means of expression,” she said, “that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s hard to put into words. But I see it give students confidence and be an emotional strength for them. That’s what we try to do.”
Garrett will direct the first concert to be held in the refurbished indoor theater, and it will be the first time the SPARC classrooms and indoor theater will be open to the public for an event.
“When we do the first concert in the indoor theater, we will offer two $2 sundaes after the concert,” she said. “It is like an unwritten law that choir performers always go to have ice cream after a concert. So, I thought that it would be a great idea to keep the audience here on campus and give the community a chance to interact with each other.”
The concert is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24. The theme for the concert will be “A Walk Through Choral History,” which will include some of the most treasured choral works of all time. The ice cream sundae social will follow.
Although there is no official admission charge for the concert, suggested donations are $5 for students and faculty and $10 for the general public.
“Unless we make notice otherwise, all concerts will be donation based, and we do that to encourage people to come whether they can afford it or not,” Garrett said. “It’s important that the community is able to participate, and if you can make a donation, it is always welcomed and appreciated. The majority will go toward the trip we are planning, but I always will put an amount of the money toward the general funds for the choral department.”
The Chamber Singers are extremely excited to be participating in this semester’s of choral activities, especially the president of the group. The president, Caley Mayhall, graduated from BC in 2009 and Brigham Young University of Hawaii in 2011, as a vocal major, and brings her expertise to the group.
“My family, my church and Whitney Houston have inspired me to sing, and I hope to bring the experience I have to the group,” said Mayhall. “Practice makes perfect. It is not just all fun, we do make music and it is cathartic.”
Mayhall has always participated in the Chamber singers to “get her skills up” and encourages others to participate in the new programs that will be offered. Mayhall will be an “active participant” in the fundraising.
Besides the first BC concert and the trip to Rome, there will be a winter program consisting of a concert at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5 at First Presbyterian Church downtown.
Along with talking about the Chamber singers, Garrett mentions the college choir, and its size.
“We have 90 in the college choir,” she said. “I don’t know that there has been an active interest in the choir like this in previous years, but I am sure that with the construction moving toward completion, that more students are going to join the choral, theater and orchestra programs.”
The construction completion allows the program to do more things, Garrett said.
“We haven’t been able to do the choirs justice by not having the right space for performances to be held in and their hard work has yet to be accurately reflected,” she said. “The whole point is supposed to be that this is the Bakersfield Community College choir, and if we can’t have the performances here on campus, then we aren’t bringing people here, we aren’t inviting people to the campus. I think that the upgrades are going to have huge benefits. People are going to come to campus and see our new space and hear us in an acoustic setting, and it will make everything worth it.”