GRMPA News & Updates

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The Madrigal Choir is an extracurricular vocal performance group that meets twice a week after school to rehearse. All who would like to participate need to audition. To sing a madrigal, all voice parts are needed—soprano, alto, tenor, and bass—with ideally four to five voices per part. There are usually around 10-15 singers in the group.

Madrigals were popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at the end of the Renaissance music and beginning of the Baroque periods. They started in Italy and were sung widely for a short time in England as well as in France.

The Glen Ridge choral director selects the music for the Madrigal Choir, which are usually compositions from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but folk and contemporary madrigal music have been performed from time to time as well. All madrigals are sung a cappella, without any instrumental accompaniment.

The Madrigal Choir performs at the Middle School and High School winter and spring concerts and at the Glen Ridge Arts Festival in May. The choir also participates in regional competitions, such as Music in the Park.

Chorus is a full-year class open to any high school student who enjoys singing.  The class meets every day and includes physical and vocal warm-ups, vocal calisthenics, a practice song, and working through the repertoire.

Students are exposed to and learn songs from a variety of genres: classical, jazz, pop, Broadway, opera, to name a few. They gain the experience of singing in other languages and collaborate with other musical groups and clubs at the high school.

Chorus also participates in fund-raisers, welcoming commuters at the train station for the citrus sale in November, and offering “Singing Grams” for Valentine’s Day.

In addition to the scheduled winter and spring concerts and competing in the Music in the Parks festival in June, Chorus has prepared an audition tape (see below) with the hope of singing the national anthem at local arenas, stadiums, and other sports venues. They also provide entertainment at the Golden Circle Senior Citizens luncheon in October, the GRHS Chinese New Year celebration in January, and various other school and community events.

At Glen Ridge High School, Concert Band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform various genres of music at two performances, winter and spring, onstage in the Ridgewood Avenue Auditorium. There are around sixty students in Concert Band. Instruments include: flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone, bassoon, oboe, trombone, trumpet, French horn, tuba, guitar, melodica, vibraphone, snare drums, bass drums, and cymbals.

The music director selects the music, which tends to focus on band transcriptions of orchestral pieces. Recent selections have included Chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach, various works by Aaron Copland, The Blue and the Gray by Clare Grundman, The Planets by Gustav Holst, Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian, and Bolero by Maurice Ravel, in addition to traditional band pieces.

Students enter Concert Band in seventh grade, rising from the upper elementary school music program. Students interested in joining do not audition or need to have prior skill on an instrument.

Concert Band is considered an academic subject in Glen Ridge High School. The class meets one period a day during the school year. The band begins each class by playing a Bach Chorale, which allows students to warm up by focusing on intonation, balance, and expression. In addition to learning performance pieces by various composers, students also learn music theory, rhythm, and instrumental techniques.

 

The Jazz Band is a high school ensemble using the genre of jazz to teach music, helping students gain new experiences and skills by playing written music and through improvisation. The ensemble plays all types of jazz, including blues, swing, bebop, cool jazz fusion, and Latin. The selected music ranges from traditional jazz to Big Band to contemporary jazz pieces.

The Jazz Band meets once a week for ninety minutes after school to rehearse the current music selections. The rehearsals begin in December and end in May.

Currently, the Jazz Band is open to all Glen Ridge High School students and does not require an audition. But students must participate in other musical programs at the high school and be able to read music. The ensemble has included 18 to 32 students, playing instruments typical of jazz bands, including alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, mellophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, drum set, bass, guitar, and vocals. High school students playing other instruments are welcomed to join; in the past, those instruments have included French horn, violin, bass clarinet, and flute. If there is not music written for a particular instrument, students are expected to transpose and write out pieces for their own instrument.

The Jazz Band performs several times each school year. There are two “coffee house” evening performances in the high school cafeteria in March and May, as well as at the Glen Ridge Arts Festival, held on the second Saturday of May.  On a biennial basis, the Jazz Band plays for “Jazz and Jambalaya,” a dinner held in the Glen Ridge Congregational Church and sponsored by the local chapter of the Kiwanis Club of America. Proceeds from the dinner benefit the Kiwanis Club and refreshments sold at the “coffee house” events benefit the GRMPA.

 

The Percussion Ensemble is a Glen Ridge High School student activity that meets for two hours per week in the evening from December through June. Students play all types of percussion instruments, including snare drums, bass drums, congas, bongos, timpani, timbales, xylophones, vibraphones, marimbas, chimes, and shakers. The music selected showcases the percussion instruments, giving each instrument a more challenging music to play than what is in standard concert band music repertoire. The Percussion Ensemble concludes the school year with an evening performance in June at the high school.

The Percussion Ensemble is open to all high school students and there is no audition.  Many who are involved in the ensemble are percussionists looking to improve their skills.  Some are Concert Band students interested in trying something new.

All are welcome to join!

Color Guard

Color Guard is the non-instrumental section of the Marching Band. Students interpret the music being played by the instrumental musicians through dance and the synchronized spinning of flags, sabers, and rifles. In addition, they work with backdrops, props, and scenery created for the show to provide additional visual aspects to the performance. In recent years, there have been five to eight students in the Glen Ridge High School Color Guard.

Basic color guard moves include: jazz runs, a dance move used as a graceful way to run with bent knees and upright posture across the football field; right shoulder, positioning the flag with the bottom of the pole by your belly button and your right hand by the flag’s silk tape; and stripping the flag, holding the flag silk with your fingers so you won’t reveal the flag’s color(s). Flag poles and silks both come in different sizes, and there are different shapes and textures for silks, as well. Some have six-foot metal poles with flags around three feet long. Swing flags are smaller and are usually used in pairs. Flags frequently have weights to make them easier to toss into the air. However, even with the weights, weather conditions such as wind and rain can affect a flag’s spin and disrupt a toss if not correctly taken into account.

In addition to performances at home football games, the Color Guard not only adds to the overall score of the Marching Band, but is also judged in its own category, usually called auxiliary.

Students interested in Color Guard sign up in the spring. They don’t need to audition or have previous experience to join.

Required Athletic Health Forms https://www.glenridge.org/Domain/151

 

Marching Band

Link to required forms

https://www.glenridge.org/Domain/757

Marching Band is a group of instrumental musicians who can march in step, following a drill chart, while performing music that complements their movements. The Glen Ridge High School Marching Band has around 40 students, divided into sections: upper brass, lower brass, upper woodwinds, lower woodwinds, percussion, and color guard. Instruments include alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, trombone, trumpet, mellophone, sousaphone, electronic keyboards, basses and guitars, xylophone and vibraphones, bongos, congas, shakers, maracas, and cymbals, quint and quad drums, cymbals, snare drums, and tuned bass drums. The color guard accompanies the band and is a way for non-instrumental students to participate in the group.

The band director selects the music, which has varied over the years. The 2020-2021 school year will feature a show based on Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Recent performances have included The Who’s Tommy, Leonard Bernstein’s On the Waterfront, The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky, the theme from Psycho, North by Northwest, and Taxi Driver by Bernard Herrmann, Buddy Rich’s West Side Story, and Rodeo by Aaron Copeland.

Students join Marching Band in the ninth grade, which in the Glen Ridge school district is considered a varsity sport. They have the opportunity to find out what it’s like when they are in eighth grade by marching in the town Memorial Day Parade. Students interested in joining do not audition or need to have prior skill on an instrument.

A team of strong, dedicated, and talented young adults lead the Marching Band on the field. Students audition to be drum major, field captain, drill sergeant, and/or sectional captains (upper brass, lower brass, upper woodwinds, lower woodwinds, percussion, and color guard). These students have to demonstrate their ability to teach, to conduct, and to run basic exercises with band members. In addition, they present a project describing why they would be best for the position and are interviewed by the band director, staff, and the band’s current leaders.

Marching Band has a weeklong  camp at the end of August and rehearses four times a week and on weekends from September to November. The group participates in competitions on the local, state, and national levels, in addition to performing during half-time at home football games.

Many students share this opinion: “We hate Marching Band during practice, love Marching Band during competitions and football games, and miss Marching Band when it’s over.”