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Features
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Congratulations,
bravo, and thank you, Chorus!
For all six of your
terrific performances this summer.
Video excerpts for
Dickinson County Community Chorus.
To give you an idea of
what you looked and sounded like at Thursday’s
Kingsford performance, here are three video excerpts
from the Fourth Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, 16 July
2015, KHS Auditorium. DCCC / PMMF. Personal cellcam
recordings for noncommercial, archival, educational,
informational, acoustical, technological-learning, and
related usages. Performers/participants, please use them
for only the same reasons (no selling
them for thousands of dollars each). I’m posting the
excerpts to a YouTube miscellaneous account because of
their size; it’s easier to store, refer to, share, and
access them at YouTube.
Please pardon the jiggle,
wobble, sway, and bounce. I had no stand for the camera
and nothing to rest my arms on. My arms began to tremble
often and noticeably from holding them above my head for
any length of time. Thus, the movement.
Excerpt No. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqGp2m_G5Rg
Excerpt No. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQe65sUVdbw
Excerpt No. 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwz77uTGqXI
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Passing of
the baton.
Hogan to succeed Calo as
Dickinson Chorus conductor
August
3, 2013
IRON MOUNTAIN - After serving 20 years as principal
conductor of the Dickinson County Community Chorus (DCCC), John Calo of Kingsford is retiring.
He will continue to serve as an assistant conductor
and chorus member.
"It has been a privilege and a joy to direct
the Dickinson County Community Chorus for the last 20
years," said Calo. "The excellence and
dedication of chorus members, many of whom have sung
as long as I have been directing, has allowed us to
provide music of the highest standard for the many
area residents who attend our concerts."
John Calo, left, who is retiring as principal
conductor of the Dickinson County Community
Chorus, passes his conductor’s baton on to the
new principal conductor, Crystal Hogan. Calo will
continue on in the chorus as an assistant
conductor and chorus member.
Over the past 46 years, the DCCC has had three
principal conductors.
The DCCC was founded in 1967 by Dan
Croci, who
directed the group until his death in 1981. Margaret
"Magee" Johnson then directed the group from
1981 until her retirement in 1993. Calo has been
directing the group since then.
Crystal Hogan, who has been the associate conductor
of the chorus for several years, will now take over as
principal conductor.
Hogan is also the choral music teacher at Breitung
Township Schools.
Gail Vornkahl, who has served as the assistant
conductor for the past few seasons, will now be the
associate conductor. Vornkahl is also the choral music
teacher at Iron Mountain Schools and the owner of
Voice Works, where she gives voice lessons.
Each year, the DCCC presents three major
performances: a Holy Week Lenten concert on the
Tuesday of Holy Week, the "Music Under the
Stars" outdoor concert in July, and the
"Sounds of Christmas" concert on the Monday
and Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
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Prairie
Home Companion. I’ve been racking my brain for an
accurate description of Lindsay Lou & the
Flatbellys. They’re every kind of music you ever heard
on Prairie Home Companion, played as well or better.
That and more. And last night with the additional
pizzazz, fire, passion, and vitality of being live and
in person.
I’ve also been referring to most of their music as
hybrid – not only their playlist, but the individual
pieces. Tons of original stuff. Fusion simply isn’t
the correct word. Hybrid. Successful blends and mixes of
jazz, bluegrass, folk rock, country, pop, Americana,
folk, traditional, Cajun, blues, soul, R&B,
influences of Harlem's Apollo, Fats Waller, Ella
Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Dixieland
and rag and Big Easy subtleties, as well as spiritual,
gospel, and broadly classical threads weaving wittingly
or unwittingly but aptly, naturally, easily through the
fabric of their music – you name it, blends and mixes
of all genres and styles under the vast American pop
culture’s sun, but uncontrived and unique (its own
sound) in its results, and absolutely musically
effective, pleasing, attractive. And more joyful than
any one band’s music has a right to be! These four
persons are excellent and versatile musicians with the
additional great good fortune of perfect chemistry among
them. Which means great good fortune for us, too, the
listeners. Watch and listen for these players on a much,
much broader stage in the near future. They’re
special.
Thanks to them – Mark Lavengood, Joshua Rilko, Lindsay
Lou Rilko, and P. J. George – for taking the time
among their national and international tours to
participate in Music in Our Schools Week at Breitung
Township Schools and for providing an exceptional public
concert for the community. Lindsay Lou Rilko once upon a
time was Lindsay Petroff, one of my wife’s music
students throughout middle school and high school and a
2005 graduate of Kingsford, and it was good to see her
again, and to see her excelling.
Thanks, too, to the Kingsford High School Student
Council and its advisor Ms. Kelly Bianco for their
sponsorship, assistance, and support. To Mr. Ben Sherk,
of course; and to the Music Boosters, sponsors as well,
particularly Mr. John Reitvelt for his promotional help
online. Thanks, also, to Ms. Crystal Hogan, the
principal moving force behind Lindsay Lou & the
Flatbellys’ performances at Kingsford. And naturally
thanks to the lively and appreciative audience who
turned out for last night’s concert and enjoyed it
immensely.
A final reminder: Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys
perform twice today (Tuesday, March 11) at Kingsford,
once for the middle school students only, once for the
high school students only, in a capacity as educational
and vocational as it is entertaining. To learn more
about them and to listen to (or to obtain) some of their
music, visit their website at http://www.lindsayloumusic.com/.
Also visit iTunes for Lindsay Lou’s, Lindsay Lou and
Joshua Rilko’s, and Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys'
singles and albums, and watch for their upcoming
releases. Get acquainted with them, too, on YouTube by
searching Lindsay
Lou, Lindsay Lou and Joshua Rilko, and Lindsay Lou &
the Flatbellys. |
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Distinguished
Invitation and Honor
to Kingsford Teacher and DCCC Director
The
Wisconsin State Music Conference has selected Music –
Creating Connections: A potpourri of techniques and
ideas for the choral and general music teacher from 35
years of trial, error, and success, by veteran
local teacher and musician Crystal Hogan, for
presentation at a session of the same name for its
annual conference in 2014. The Conference has invited
Ms. Hogan to make the presentation there in Madison in
October.
A resident of Iron Mountain since 1979, Crystal Hogan
holds a B.A. degree in Music Education and an M.A.
degree in Education. In 1982 she also received Kodaly
Certification.
Next fall Ms. Hogan will begin her 36th year as
principally a vocal, choral, exploratory, and general
music instructor in the community – 20 years at
Florence Public Schools in Wisconsin and 15 years at
Breitung Township Public Schools in Kingsford, Michigan.
Ms. Hogan is also active in church music (singer,
accompanist, guitarist, pianist, organist, praise music,
etc.), community musical groups, as a director of
touring student musical groups in the U.S. and abroad,
and as a participating educator in camps, workshops, and
regional universities and junior colleges. She has
performed and recorded as a soloist and with the
versatile folk and hybrid group WindSong, and she
continues to perform and record as a soloist.
Presently Ms. Hogan is also the musical director and
principal conductor of the Dickinson County Community
Chorus, a popular, versatile, and distinguished
two-state, multi-county musical group based in
Kingsford, Michigan. In 2013, DCCC awarded her this spot
after she had served for several years as associate
conductor, and Ms. Hogan is the organization’s fourth
director in its 47-year existence. |
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