“Why Dearborn Sings” performance to debut March 23
Under the auspices of HFC music professor G. Kevin Dewey, HFC’s music groups will form a virtual chorus and orchestra with the music groups of all three high schools in the Dearborn Public Schools – Dearborn High School, Edsel Ford High School, and Fordson High School – called Why Dearborn Sings to perform “Why We Sing,” written by award-winning composer Greg Gilpin. Their performance will be released on the HFC Music YouTube Channel on Tuesday, March 23.
“It’s become a huge project, huger than when we started it. I’ve been working with the choir and instrumental directors from all three Dearborn high schools, getting the materials ready for the students. They’ve been working on it for the past month and have been submitting their recordings over the past week,” said Dewey.
According to Dewey, more than 150 recordings have already been submitted!
Going “full Queen”
“One of the neat things about directing a virtual chorus is you can submit more than one recording, and you can have a 50-voice chorus sound like a 150-voice chorus,” said Dewey. “I call it going ‘full Queen’ like Freddy Mercury of Queen – he’d record over and over again, so it sounded like a full choir of Freddy. When I make the demo recordings for the students, I’ll record myself singing 16-24 times, so it sounds like a whole choir of Kevin singing this song as a demo for them.”
That led to the idea to make a demo recording. DHS choir director Jennifer Pegouske made several recordings of the soprano portions of the song. Fordson choir director Jillian Newton made several recordings of the alto portions of the song. Dewey made several recordings of the tenor and bass portions of the song.
“We put this out to inspire our students, so they can learn their parts and to also show them that we know what we’re doing, technology-wise. That cascaded and got blown out of proportion when we got the idea to involve the instrumental directors from the high schools, too, because there is a full orchestration. We got them onboard. Students are submitting instrumental recordings too. So we have a demo recording on YouTube that has the full orchestration – all the instruments and the choir – just by the staff. It’s a pretty good demo!” said Dewey.
Inspiring students virtually
According to Dewey, the College is the driving force as far as the technology on this project is concerned. HFC Certificate of Achievement in Recording Arts (CARA) manager/music therapist Jeremy Palmer will do the editing and mixing. The production period should take approximately 1-2 weeks, depending on the final number of contributions from students.
“The whole point of this demo reel is for the high school students to not only see it but use it as a way to inspire them,” said Dewey. “I realize a virtual chorus is not the same as singing in an actual choir. That can’t be done until we can meet together again safely to rehearse and perform in public. This is something different, which choristers can do until then. It’s more like being a studio singer than being a choir singer because you learn the music through virtual methods, and record one voice at a time. This is a way to convince other people that even though it’s not live singing, it is fun singing and fun to be a part of it. There is artistry and technical skill development. It’s educational and it’s purposeful.”
The aforementioned demo reel of “Why We Sing” is currently available on the YouTube Channel to whet your appetite for the real thing on March 23.