Give a girl the gift 
she can enjoy the rest of her life.

   The Church of the Redeemer founded the Bryn Mawr Girlchoir in 1999 to undertake community outreach through music. The members of the choir all receive full scholarships covering the cost of uniforms, local travel, instruction, voice coaching, and summer camp. The choristers sing 40 to 50 services and concerts annually at the Redeemer and throughout the community. 
   The church's goal is to provide young singers the environment for developing the gifts of self-esteem, respect, team spirit, and discipline. Singing sacred and secular music at the highest possible level is the vehicle for developing these gifts. 
   The award-winning Bryn Mawr Girlchoir challenges a girl to excel at music in a team centered environment. She will cherish a love for music and song and take with her the skills she learns in the process.
   As the resident Girlchoir of the Church of the Redeemer, the Bryn Mawr Girlchoir performs regularly for Sunday worship at the historic church. Tours nationally and abroad to religious and civic venues extend its ministry to a wide variety of audiences.
   The Church of the Redeemer's magnificent architecture is also a ministry to the many seekers and believers who visit each week. Complementing its visual beauty, the Redeemer participates in a millennium-old legacy of music education in the great cathedral tradition.

                      Teamwork
Singing in a choir is a team sport, the choir being only as good as its most inexperienced singers. The responsibility for fulfilling one's assignment in the choir falls to each individual member.  The challenge for the girls is in supporting each other in this task, in relating to one another in ways that strengthen confidence and skill. This goal is aided by structuring the choir around four skill groups: Probationer, Novice, Junior, and Senior choristers.

                     Opportunity
Opportunity comes in several forms in the Bryn Mawr Girlchoir.  Girls have the opportunity to develop their musicianship and their sensitivity to poetry and the arts; to visit new people and places not merely as tourists but as ambassadors of an artistic tradition; to lead worship in a variety of faiths; to grow in the knowledge and understanding of their creator; and to deepen a sense of self-esteem not merely through "busy" work, but in work which can profoundly move both performer and listener. 
Few activities during these years in a girl's life can compare to the experience of choral singing; the experience of being treated as the equal of an adult in terms of musical preparation and attentiveness to responsibilities.

                     Discipline
Personal discipline is a requirement for success in the Girlchoir. The weekly rehearsal and performance schedule combined with a graded program structure and periodic reviews require that the girls become proactive, taking responsibility for their own progress within the choir. In this way discipline becomes a tool for advancement.

                    Dedication
The girls aim to be the equals of the adult musicians with whom they frequently perform. Girls joining the choir often enter with trepidation: making friends, learning new skills and adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings can be challenging. It is a testament to the choristers and the spirit within the choir that the vast majority of new girls adjust beautifully and discover a passion for the choir and its work.

                        Quality
The sound of a first rate girlchoir is worth the effort. This sound, combined with a thorough understanding of the texts, makes a choir successful. Ultimately, the greatest testimony on behalf of the considerable effort the choir makes each week is the quality of their singing, be it for church services or public concerts.

                Practice Schedule
New choristers rehearse twice weekly, plus occasional church services, local appearances, concerts, tours and other special events.  
Regular voice lessons are scheduled for each singer in the Touring Choir for several weeks each year. 
A preliminary schedule with tour dates is published in the fall.
The choirs have a week off after Christmas, a week off in the spring and two additional weeks off at the family's discretion. The season begins the week following Labor Day and runs through late June when the choir records.
Choir camp is held for girls in the Touring choir.  It is typically held in late August to prepare for the fall season.  
All expenses, including tour costs, summer camp, uniforms (except shoes), and voice lessons are included with admission to the choir. Only the cost of extended tours is not included in the scholarship. However, financial aid is available for choir members on a needs-basis.

Why the Girlchoir might be good for your daughter 
from Musical notes: Calvary Church, Pittsburgh
by Alan Lewis 

“The news media have paid sporadically excited attention in recent years to what has been dubbed "the Mozart effect," a correlation between musical study and the intellectual development of children. And, indeed, there has been ample documentation of a connection between musical study and the development of spatial awareness, a skill of great importance for the apprehension of mathematics, and later for science and engineering. 

Research on young music students in Hungary has noted their increased performance in reasoning, comprehension, and memorization compared to their peers in more conventional schools, and has also demonstrated that the music students were habituated to participate more actively in the learning process, answering questions, building on the answers of classmates, and demonstrating better study discipline than in the other schools. 

Indeed, collaboration is one of the essential skills that music can teach. People often think of musical study as an isolating experience - hours alone at the piano or violin that might have been spent in the company of other children playing games. And it is true that some aspects of musical study do demand solitary concentration. But other avenues of musical experience - playing instrument in ensembles, or, of course, singing in choirs - are inherently group-oriented, and teach the rewards of collaboration, (and the pitfalls of not collaborating) even as they build the musical (and intellectual ) skills of the children participating.

Research suggests, too, that all children are created more or less equal in musical terms - that what we blithely call musical "gifts" are available to all children, if only they are cultivated and encouraged. As with the study of languages, that encouragement and cultivation is most effective when it comes early; it is far easier to teach a six-year old to match a pitch, and thus to "sing in tune" than it is to teach a twelve-year-old (or a thirty year old) who has never tried to develop that skill. Music is indeed a gift - but it is a gift open to all, not rationed out to a select few.”

You can, I'm sure, guess what's coming next, not a harangue, but an invitation to all, and particularly to children, to become musically involved... It does mean work - as in most things, the rewards are proportionate to the effort that produces them. But the rewards of regular participation in music…will not only be some hope of results from " the Mozart effect" years down the road, but an increased sense of connection, week-in, week-out, to our worship, to this community, and to the God who gives us music and one another.

Recordings

Click here to hear a track from the CD Here I am, Lord.
  "What sweeter music": John Rutter

Click here to hear a track from an upcoming Christmas CD release
  "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing"

A NEW CD featuring the combined Girl and Boy Choirs in concert in Chicago and at The Redeemer.. The recording features a variety of music from Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow" to Benjamin Britten's Missa Brevis in D. Listen to a few tracks below.

  Magnificat in F: Malcom Archer

  "Over the Rainbow" - Harold Arlen

  "Bist du bei mir" - J. S. Bach

The CDs of the Boychoir and Girlchoir are available for purchase.
Cost is $15 each.
Please contact the church office or dan@theredeemer.org.

More Selections by the Bryn Mawr Girlchoir

 Ave Maria: Matthew Martin *

  A New Year Carol: Robert Ruutel *

  God Be with You Till We Meet Again *

*  Recorded for Shawnee Press, Inc. and Chester/Novello demo CD and performed along with members of the Chapel choir of Bramdean School, Exeter (Jeremy Rawlings, Master of the Chapel Choir) Recorded in the Chapel of St. George and Dominic Savio, Bramdean School, Exeter. Barry Rose and Michael Stairs.

Recent Sunday Morning Worship  Anthems Bryn Mawr Girlchoir

 Lift thine eyes from Elijah; Felix Mendelssohn *
         Sunday, June 17, 2007

 Steal Away, spiritual arranged by Elvy *
         Sunday, June 17, 2007

* Recorded live from Sunday morning worship services.