Arts Activities Support

We have grown to a choir of 160 members, averaging 42-43 members for each rehearsal. While those numbers are impressive, even more impressive is the ownership that has grown amongst members. People insist on spreading out the work and make this their choir. We sang in 9 different venues from the Capri Theater to Target Field. Our confidence and pride grows with each performance. The 3 goals we set were met with great vigor! Our membership grew from 42 to 144, the majority (90%) live in the Mill District. Our outreach to people who live in poverty and are homeless has increased our membership with a carload of men from Harbor Lights joining our choir, and a group from Alliance and Emanuel Housing. We performed at a Twins Game, at the Guthrie, at the MacPhail Music Matters Luncheon, at the Concert Across America to End Gun Violence, at the Capri Theater, at the Skyway Senior Center, and caroled throughout the Mill District at Winterfest. Our mission is to sing songs of hope and unity, and we do that, and while audiences seem to respond with enthusiasm, the real changes are in our community of singers. The most effective part of our year was the formation of a community. We begin rehearsals with hugs and end with hugs. Everyone is welcome and everyone is greeted. It started as my role, but quickly expanded to include everyone. Several women from Alliance self-designated themselves as the organizers, and they are. They come early, help set up chairs, and then make sure everyone who walks in is welcomed and hugged. We also hold an 'end of session' potluck at a nearby condo. That has become something to anticipate and, again, has been taken over by the group. There truly is no group leader, other than JD when we sing! The model we found is working! We are passionate about our group. There was a 3 month hiatus planned for January-March of this year, and there was so much discussion about THREE months being too long, that we found the money to add in March rehearsals. We want to bring in neighbors from the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. That has not been successful up to this point. It would be a major point of effort if we are allowed to repeat this grant. Expanding our rehearsals from 24 to 30 is a major new goal. In our grant proposal, we suggested that we would ‘solicit audience opinions about their enjoyment of performances via short questionnaires about our stated artistic and community goals.’ While we did not use questionnaires, we did solicit opinions. The questionnaires became logistically problematic, so we decided to ‘spread out’ after performances and solicit opinions from audience members verbally and report back to the choir about the remarks. The majority of comments were about the magic of JD Steele, the diversity of the singers, and the enthusiasm and passion with which we sang. We performed in very different venues to very different audiences, ranging from the Guthrie Theater, the MacPhail Music Matters Luncheon, at the Concert Across American to End Violence, Winterfest on 2nd Avenue in the Mill District, to singing ‘Take Me out to the Ballgame’ during the 7th Inning stretch at a Minnesota Twins game. It is difficult to imagine a more diverse range of venues, although we are determined to add audiences next year. Our goals were met in ways we couldn’t have imagined, and we far surpassed anything we were able to imagine. Our intention to do outreach to diverse communities was accomplished, but we are clear there is much more work to be done. We did not perform in the Cedar Riverside community and are already in discussion to do so next year. It is a slow process as we discovered. Gaining entre demands gaining trust and that is done by ‘showing up’ which is exactly what a group of us has begun doing, and we are confident that next year we will accomplish this goal. We ended this season with 160 members on our roster. The average attendance at rehearsals seems to have ‘settled’ at 42-43 singers. We have carloads of men from Harbor Lights attending, people from Alliance Apartments and Emanuel Housing, as well as many members from the Mill District condominiums, as well as members from condos in the St Anthony neighborhood. There is even a ‘friend’ who drives from North Branch to sing with us. While our outreach has been incredibly successful, we are just getting started!