The two octaves and four strings of a ukulele. A five-gallon paint bucket turned upside down and used as a drum. These aren’t the symbols most people picture when they think of The Choir School.

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But when Artistic Director Elizabeth Lenti handed down plans for the fall curriculum, the introduction of ukulele and bucket drumming made perfect sense to Garrett Law.

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“You start to feel the music when you play an instrument. It’s such a tactile thing, where singing is kind of taking a note from the air. So you can feel what C Major is like. And that rewires your brain and I hope that will help kids with their understanding of music,” Law, The Choir School’s assistant director said.

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“You’ve got Anglican choristers playing ukulele — it’s such a dichotomy. But a part of me really thinks that’s what The Choir School is. We’ve got these giant choir nerds [the staff, he says], but we’ve got artists, we’ve got people who play other instruments, and I think it just shows the creativity of the staff and the choristers. We’re not just Anglican choir. It’s not so one-dimensional as many think we are.”

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“There’s still beauty. There’s still choral music. Nothing is going to change that.”

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It even has Garrett asking why we’ve not done this before. It fits the program, he says, because The Choir School has always been anchored by a broad sense of music education.

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“I think our kids are exposed to the whole gamut of music and I think we’re capable of anything we’d want to do. We draw from so much. We’ve got church music, we’ve got spirituals, we’ve got classical, and a lot of jazz,” he said, humbly adding that “we kind of can do it all.”

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In a season that will undoubtedly be different, certain things are pretty much the same. That’s because the organization’s always had a robust music education curriculum and has always been there for our students, forming a tight community that Garrett says is more critical now than ever.

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“In a world that is so challenged, I know that we give people hope. There’s still beauty. There’s still choral music. Nothing is going to change that.”

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As to how The Choir School adapted, perhaps bucket drumming is a fitting metaphor.

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“We didn’t miss a beat. We’re still going, on the same page. Same rhythm.”

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Story by Geoff Yost ’08

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