Staunton Choral Society Google Calendar 

10/27/25

10/20/25

To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

I hope that you enjoyed the sectional from this past Monday night. Thank you, Teresa, MJ and Catherine, for running the sectionals for the sopranos and the altos. I plan on holding several more of them over the next several weeks, focusing on just a few songs or even specific places in songs that need work. Also, please let me know if there are any songs or passages that you would like covered in a future sectional.

As of this past Monday night, we have sung through ALL of our holiday songs, and I am very pleased with the progress we have made thus far. Our concentration over the next weeks will be to clean up areas of songs, tighten up rhythms and make each one of our songs become more musical.

Your individual job is to work on your music at HOME between rehearsals. Even if you just look at each song one or two additional times and/or sing along with the videos on our website, you will make a dramatic change in your own singing and will contribute greatly to the overall sound of the ensemble.  It’s up to each of you as singers and musicians, to be an integral part of creating the best experience possible for our audiences. No one else can do it for you. Going week to week and only singing the music on Monday nights will not help us to improve.

For this coming week’s rehearsal, we will continue to work on “Christmas Star”, “Irving Berlin’s Christmas”, “The Little Drummer Boy”, “Let It Go” and “Do You Want To Build A Snowman”. Please take the time to review these songs before Monday night so we can make the most of our time together.

Also, thank you to the ladies who stayed after and are now part of Chorus II for “Ave Maria”. I believe that you will all be very pleased when we put both choruses together for the first time. We still will be holding auditions for the solos for that piece and our other songs. Please make sure you sign up in the book this week. It will be the last week before our auditions.

Here is the tip from Mac on singing with the YouTube videos. Thanks Mac!

I find it helpful to lower the playback speed when trying to learn my part while following along with the Youtube videos. You can slow the speed in one-quarter increments; I find .75 speed is really helpful, and occasionally .5 for the really tricky parts.

To set the playback speed:

1. Go to a video.

2. Tap the video once or hover your mouse over the video, then tap the Settings (gear) icon in bar in the lower right corner.

3. Tap Playback speed.

4. Select the speed at which you'd like the video to play.

Note that when you select a slower speed it seems to stay that way for all videos unless you reset the speed to 1.0.

Sometimes you can find a Youtube video of just your part. For example: search Youtube for “bass part Believe Mark Hayes” or “alto part Ave Maria Biebl.”

Once again, here is the link to our chorus website.  www.stauntonchoralsociety.org

To get to the rehearsal tracks, go to the members page and then select rehearsal  tracks.

Thank you,

Gary

10/13/25

To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

As I mentioned in my last Director’s Note, and at our rehearsal on Monday night, we are now in the last half of our semester and getting closer to our performances. We have introduced all our holiday songs, sung through several of them completely, and now need to take personal initiative to make sure each of you know your notes and words.

We sang through both “Believe” and “Somewhere In My Memory” this past rehearsal and although they sounded good, there were parts that require more work to make the harmonies work. Getting solid with your notes will allow each of you to feel more comfortable with our songs and will help us to make them more musical.

This week we will spend some time in sectional rehearsals, working on individual parts and rhythms on a number of our songs. The list of songs will be the following.

·   Holiday Road – Men only

·   Irving Berlin’s Christmas

·   Believe

·   Let It Go

·   Somewhere In My Memory

·   The Little Drummer Boy – Men only

Please review each of these songs for notes and rhythms so that we will not need to repeat all of the work we have put into these songs so far this year.

Once again, here is the link to our chorus website.  www.stauntonchoralsociety.org

To get to the rehearsal tracks, go to the members page and then select rehearsal tracks.

Thank you,

Gary

10/6/25

To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

This is my 6th Director’s Notes email which means we are almost halfway through the semester! I guess time really does fly by when you’re having fun!

The following is a list of all our songs in performance order (subject to change) and where we are on each one. I hope you are as excited as I am about our progress so far and how much time we are going to have to polish all our songs.

Holiday Road: We’ve sung this song through many times, and it is progressing nicely. We need to ensure the correct rhythms are sung and that will be my focus over the next several weeks. We also need to start having more fun with it and not sing it so heavy!

Irving Berlin’s Christmas: We have learned 90% of this song and only have one section of “Snow” to learn. Once we have that section learned, we can start to put the entire song together and begin to make it more musical.

Christmas Time Is Here: We have sung through this song several times and I believe most of the notes are there. We just need to solidify the notes and make it more musical.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas: This is a song that I brought back from last winter’s concert because we already know it, and it was a great song to start our semester with. It also fits nicely with our concert theme.

Ave Maria: I am so impressed with how well this piece is coming along. We have learned Chorus 1 and now we need to put it together with Chorus 2. As I stated last week, we need to put together a small ensemble and the plain chant soloists, so please take this week to sign up in the “book”.  Next week, I will start holding auditions.

Believe: We have sung this song all the way through and now we need to work on singing it musically.

Let It Go: We have learned this song about 95% through. It still needs work on the rhythms to make it work, but I am confident we can make that happen. It does start with a female soloist, and I will be auditioning for that very soon.

Do You Want To Build A Snowman: We haven’t sung this song for long, but it is going well. We will continue to spend time on this song for the next several weeks.

Christmas Star: This is one of the last songs started, so like “Snowman” we will continue working on it each week until we learn it.

Somewhere In My Memory: We’ve sung this song through completely and I like the way it is sounding. As usual, we need to make it musical. Sound familiar?

The Little Drummer Boy: Since this piece was just introduced a few weeks ago, it is still in the learning stages. A lot of the piece will depend on the Tenors and Basses for the foundation. Please continue to work on this piece, listen to the videos, and sing along to get the correct rhythm.

Holiday Road Of Carols: We have also sung this song all the way through except for a new ending that I am working on.

As you can see, we are in a very good place for our half-way point and things will only get better from here. I am looking forward to our next 7 rehearsals, and I hope you are too!

Once again, here is the link to our chorus website.  www.stauntonchoralsociety.org

To get to the rehearsal tracks, go to the members page and then select rehearsal tracks.

Thank you,

Gary

9/29/25

To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

We have introduced all of our holiday concert songs except for two, “Christmas Star”
and “Do You Want To Build A Snowman”. This coming Monday night, we will start those songs. We have also sung through a good number of our songs completely and I am very happy with the progress we are making. I know that we need to still work on getting the right notes and rhythm on some sections of our songs, but most of them are doing very well. We will work on scheduling section rehearsals in the future and spend the time working to get all our notes right. Then all we will need to do is to work on polishing our songs for our performances.

Here are a few notes from this past Monday’s rehearsal.

·   Ave Maria: Please continue to work on notes. We are sounding good, but there are places that need work. We will continue to sing this but break it down into smaller sections. Once again, if you are interested in singing in the small ensemble or singing one of the plain chant solos, please sign up in the Solo/Ensemble Book.

·   Believe: We have learned all the notes and rhythms and sung it all the way through, so now we need to make sure that the notes are solid. Once that happens, we can begin to polish the song and make music singing it.

·   Let It Go: We will continue to learn this song and this Monday will be working on the sections that have not been introduced. Please review measures 53-67 and 88-104.

·   Somewhere In My Memory: This is another song we have worked on and sung all the way through. Please keep working on this song and keep reviewing the videos to keep it fresh.

·   Little Drummer Boy: This past Monday, the bass and tenors along with some ladies worked on and learned the main part to this song. They will be singing this to the sopranos and altos on Monday night. Then we will continue to spend time on learning the rest of the song. I believe this is a great arrangement by Mark Hayes that I look forward to us singing in Dec.

Once again, here is the link to our chorus website.  www.stauntonchoralsociety.org

To get to the rehearsal tracks, go to the members page and then select rehearsal tracks.

Thank you,

Gary

9/22/25

 To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

Once again, I am very happy with the progress we are making on all our songs! We only have three songs left to introduce - “The Little Drummer Boy”, “Christmas Star” and “Do You Want To Build A Snowman”. We will introduce “Sure On This Shining Night” in late October or early November, but that will be for next spring’s concert.

Here are a few notes on the songs we worked on this past Monday.

·   Irving Berlin’s Christmas – We have only a few sections to work on and then we will have the entire piece    learned. Please continue to listen to and work on “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm”, “Count Your Blessings” and “Snow”. We will work on these three sections on Monday and hopefully sing the song from start to finish.

·   Ave Maria – We will review the Sancta Maria section starting at measure 22 and also work on the “Amen” section at measure 40. Also, please sign up for the ensemble in the solos and ensemble book so we can hold auditions for the three solos and begin holding special rehearsals on chorus II.

·   Believe – Review what we have already worked on and be ready to learn measures 2-24, 36-56.

·   Let It Go - Review the song as we have learned it and be prepared to learn measures 53-67; 88-104.

·   Somewhere In My Memory - We will start to work on measures 30-37, 6-13.

Towards the last part of our rehearsal, we will begin to work on “The Little Drummer Boy”. Any altos that want to sing the tenor part and all the men will need to stay. The ladies will be dismissed early.

Here is the link to our chorus website.  www.stauntonchoralsociety.org

To get to the rehearsal tracks, go to the members page and then select rehearsal tracks.

Thank you,

Gary

9/15/25

 To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

I was very happy with this past Monday’s rehearsal and the progress we are all making on all the songs. I am also very impressed with how “Ave Maria” is coming along. This is a very beautiful piece, and I can’t wait to start to polish it and add the second chorus.

Here are a few things to work on before Monday.

·   Please continue to listen to both “Holiday Road” pieces on the SCS website (see link below) and practice them at home. Because we are doing very well with those two songs, we will not be working on them during rehearsal for the next few weeks in order to begin focusing on other pieces in the repertoire. Tenors and basses, please keep working on and perfecting the rhythm in the first few phrases. The same goes for “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”.

·   We are progressing nicely on “Irving Berlin’s Christmas” and only have a few songs that we need to introduce. Please listen to the video on the website, especially the section with “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” - we will add that Monday.

·   “Ave Maria” – There will be an octet singing the second chorus as well as soloists singing the two plain chants. If you are interested in either the chorus or singing the plain chant, please let me know.

·   This coming Monday we will work on reviewing songs we have already introduced and will introduce “Somewhere In My Memory” and “The Little Drummer Boy”. Please listen to those songs on the website to familiarize yourself with the arrangements that we are learning.

Here is the link to our chorus website.  www.stauntonchoralsociety.org

To get to the rehearsal tracks, go to the members page and then select rehearsal tracks.

Thank you,

Gary

9/08/25

To: Staunton Choral Society Members

From: Gary Bibens, Music Director

All,

I am so excited to be writing my first Director’s Note for the fall season as your new Music Director! Thank you for the trust that you and the board have placed in me.

This past Monday’s rehearsal was a very productive one for really being our first rehearsal of the semester. I was very impressed with how quickly you have learned the first few songs that we started before Labor Day and how quickly you were able to learn the other songs that we worked on. My hope is that because these songs are fun and memorable to you, that they will go very smoothly in the learning process and we will be able to spend more time polishing them and making them artistic.

Suzanne has created a great web page for Staunton Choral Society! (please thank her for all her hard work!) Please go to www.stauntonchoralsociety.org and look at the site. On the site is a member’s page where you can see our calendar as well as rehearsal tracks for the songs that we are singing. As I said Monday, the videos are not part predominant, but they will allow you to familiarize yourselves with the songs and even sing along. There is even a link that Suzanne has placed in the page that allows you to see all the songs on YouTube so you can create your own playlist and listen on your phones or other devices.

Shortly, Suzanne will add another page that I will use for other miscellaneous musical things that I will share with you. For example, warm-ups, music 101 sheets, an archive of my Director’s Notes etc. Anything that I feel will be useful to you as choir members. My hope is that you will visit the page frequently so you can benefit from what I am putting there.

Here are a few notes from our rehearsal to go over before next Monday.

Something that you will hear from me a lot and hopefully less and less as the semester progresses. I want the music we sing to have “life”!  In order to have life, music must not be stagnant, it needs to move. Dynamics help with giving life to a song, but more importantly, music needs to ebb and flow; have a shape to it. Singers accomplish this shape by not singing every note and every word the same. Take a listen to any of your favorite singers and listen closely to what they do with phrases, words, inflection, and dynamics. Hopefully, they are not singing the notes and words so they don’t move or change.

I also like telling stories with our music. Think about the lyrics and read them alone, before adding the notes. What is the composer or lyricist saying with their words? How can we convey our story to the listener? What are the important words in the phrase? What are the unimportant words? Look at the duration of the notes on the important words. What can we do as singers to emphasize the right words and tell a better story?

Another thing that I like to do has to do with taking pitches before we sing. The term is “Audiate”. Listen to the pitch the piano is playing, but DON’T SING it! Hear it in your head, it will be the correct pitch when you sing it with the ensemble. If you sing it first, the tendency is to sing it flat right from the start, or to bring your fellow singer down and they will sing it flat. You can not hear a note that is flat in your head. Try it and you will see how much better our songs will start.

We are just starting this semester so if you have friends, neighbors, church choir members or anyone that might be interested in singing, please invite them to join us. Wouldn’t it be great to have 50 or 60 singers this semester? If you like what you are doing in the chorus, then share what we are doing with others.

I also want to share what I am working on for next spring. 2026 is the 250th anniversary of America, and I think we need to celebrate 250 years of American music. My plan is to present a concert with the concept of American Masterpieces: 250 Years of American Choral Music. I hope that you will all be part of the celebration!

I know that this first “Note” is longer than usual and I would normally be writing about items in the music to work on, but I will end now and save that for the next Director’s Note.

Thank you so much for allowing me to stand in front of you as your director. I am deeply humbled and honored

Gary; Music Director

Staunton Choral Society

8/26/2025

To All Staunton Choral Society Singers,

Fall is right around the corner, and I am looking forward to our first rehearsal beginning on Monday, August 25th. I hope everyone has had a nice summer break and you are ready to return and have some fun preparing for the upcoming holiday season! I think you will agree that the repertoire we will be working on while challenging, will be fun!!

For the upcoming semester, Staunton Choral Society will present a program that will take its audiences down the “Holiday Road” as we sing a variety of songs from movies and television programs that celebrate the holiday and winter season. We will delight our audiences as we take them on this journey of wonderful songs. Think about the music you have enjoyed when you have watched a movie or a television program and let those thoughts take you back to that special memory. Remember hearing Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” with Danny Kaye, Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney? How about “Snow” when they were on the train and the beautiful ballad “Count Your Blessings”? Do you sing along with Josh Groban when he sings “Believe” from the holiday classic movie Polar Express? Are“Christmas Star” and “Somewhere in My Memory” from Home Alone 1 & 2 extra special to you?

And then there is the popular song from the movie Frozen. Do you remember hearing “Let It Go” for the first time….and second and third and fourth? We couldn’t get that song out of our heads for a long time afterwards, especially if you had young children in the house - and don’t forget “Do You Want To Build A Snowman” also from Frozen. And then of course, who could forget National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with the catchy tune “Holiday Road” written by Lindsey Buckingham (of Fleetwood Mac) specifically for the movie?

These are just some of the songs in our holiday season repertoire. There are more to discover at the first rehearsal!

Please invite your friends, neighbors, fellow church choir members, etc. and anyone else that you know to join us for our first rehearsal. When you are standing in line at the grocery store ask someone where they do their singing? We need to increase our ranks and get as many people as we can to join us in the fun as we sing and prepare for our concert. If you are having fun, and I certainly hope you are, then spread the word and get others to enjoy the camaraderie of Staunton Choral Society! Don’t keep it a secret - spread the joy!

I look forward to seeing everyone on the 25th and I look forward to making great music with you this fall.

In Harmony,

Gary