CHOIR FOR CHILDREN IN DOUGLAS COUNTY, KS

Our vision is to offer a vibrant and quality choral music experience for children in grades 3-6.  We are gathering a growing circle of young singers who represent richly diverse racial, religious, economic and cultural backgrounds.  To insure the full participation of students from all backgrounds, Cantemos will be offered as a gift to the community.  All children are able to participate, regardless of family financial resources.  To make this possible, a newly formed governing board has already begun to interpret the mission of the choir to local citizens, businesses, foundations and other organizations and to offer opportunities for them to invest in this venture.

We are designing a program that nurtures in children a love of music and the facility to make it; a program that gives the young an opportunity to experience and express the transformative power of song.  Singers will receive a basic music education: learning to read notes and to hold a part, developing rhythm, harmony, vocal tone and pitch, and expressing beauty together with others in the chorus.  Choir members will experience a variety of choral literature—ancient and new, Western and global. Cantemos will perform quality concerts for the local community that will leave lasting and enriching impressions on both performers and audience.  This children’s choir will lay a foundation for a lifetime of music appreciation for its members, most of whom will be called into vocations, and make their living, outside of music.

Active involvement in a choir has other inherent benefits for children beyond the musical gifts.  Singing in a choir at an early age:

• develops self-esteem,

• makes a positive impact on a child’s motor and sensory functions,

• enhances academic, cognitive, mathematical and linguistic abilities,

• nurtures the natural wonder, curiosity, persistence, authenticity, and delight of childhood,

• helps children learn to thrive in the world and awaken them to Mystery,

• inspires confidence, creativity, and spontaneity,

• gives the joy of healthy relationships and the satisfaction that comes with cooperating with others to make something good and beautiful,

• helps children develop into healthy adults who are fully vested members of our community. 

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