By Samuel Campbell

For many years, Tempe Prep has offered the opportunity to join top-notch choirs for middle schoolers (Bel Canto) and high schoolers (Cantamus). We’ve been lucky to have great conductors for both choirs in the past, including our very own Dr. Wolfe, and our current conductors are among the best: Heidi Johnson conducts Bel Canto and Aimee Stewart is the conductor for Cantamus. Now, for the first time, Tempe Prep is offering an additional choir for high schoolers: Chamber Choir. Cantamus now has over 74 members, and with the introduction of the new Chamber Choir, Mrs. Stewart hopes that Tempe Prep can “Involve more students in the choir program.”

With this new opportunity, Mrs. Stewart hopes to “meet the demands for more choral arts at TPA” and to have a “more advanced group that will learn more difficult music at a faster pace.” Chamber Choir is a subset of Cantamus, which means that to audition for Chamber, each student had to first make it into Cantamus. The auditions for Chamber and Cantamus were completed at the same time, however, students interested in Chamber Choir had a bit extra added to the audition process. For this inaugural year, there are seven sopranos, eight altos, six tenors and five basses in Chamber Choir.

When Mrs. Stewart took over high school choir two years ago, she brought with her the idea of a choir council. Both high school choirs have their own choir councils made up of seniors (and some juniors in Chamber Choir). Chloe Darling is the president of Cantamus with John Patterson as vice president. Anah Hargrove is the president of Chamber with Josh Hudson as vice president. There are also section leaders, event planners, a design committee, and a historian. Great student leadership helps our choirs to succeed.

Although the trip has not been confirmed, hopefully, everyone in both high school choirs will be able to go to Disneyland this year and participate in a choral workshop. Apart from Disneyland, Chamber Choir will represent Tempe Prep at the Jazz Madrigal Festival in Flagstaff early next year. There, the Chamber Choir will perform alongside some amazing choirs from all around Arizona. Mrs. Stewart is “looking forward to participating once again in the Jazz Madrigal Festival.” Last year, Cantamus represented Tempe Prep at the Festival and received a superior, the highest ranking! This year, Mrs. Stewart hopes to have Chamber prepared to earn a perfect score with more complex songs and experienced singers.