Education

Schola Cantorum on Hudson (SCH) was founded on the belief that music plays a vital role in every life. This philosophy informs all of our activities and is nowhere more evident than in our education programs. Read on to discover where you might fit in!

Choral Scholar Program

SCH’s Choral Scholar Program is designed to provide professional-level training and performance opportunities for high school students with outstanding vocal promise who intend to pursue a career in music. A Choral Scholarship enables a student to participate fully as a singing member of SCH and to receive partial tuition for private vocal instruction. Our Choral Scholars also receive written recommendations as they apply to conservatories and music schools. Additionally, they and their families are guided through the complex process of conservatory auditions.
Choral Scholars are selected through a competitive application process based on the following criteria:
  • Audition (including a prepared song, sight-reading, and aural skills testing)
  • Interviews with the Artistic Director and various committees
  • Musical experience
  • Recommendations

Basic information and an application form is available by clicking here. Applications should be submitted in April of the sophomore or junior year of high school for consideration for the following academic year. SCH supports no more than two Choral Scholars at any one time.

The Choral Scholar Program was instituted in the group’s very first season (1994-95), and has been active throughout its history. Click here for a chronology and biographies of our Choral Scholars.

Interested candidates for the SCH Choral Scholar Program are welcome to contact the Artistic Director via e-mail or by phone (888) 407-6002. 

Cantorum Young Singers

In 1999, SCH introduced the Cantorum Kids program, since renamed Cantorum Young Singers (CYS), to encourage young people’s life-long involvement with singing. The program is designed to nurture musical and ensemble skills through collaborative experiences between school-age musicians, members of the community, and the SCH membership.

Through a competitive application process, SCH selects a school that demonstrates a lively, well-run choral program for year-long involvement in SCH's self-produced concert season. SCH's Artistic Director visits the school during the year to interact with students and their director and to prepare the CYS ensemble for the planned musical collaboration. The number and nature of shared events is arranged with the director of the adopted program. Repertoire is chosen collaboratively by SCH's Artistic Director and the CYS ensemble director.

Applications for the CYS program are reviewed in the fall of each year for the following season. Applicants are encouraged to include a recording of live performances, among other materials, when submitting the application.

Click here to download an application.  

Mail completed application to:
Cantorum Young Singers Program
Schola Cantorum on Hudson
P.O.Box 3914
Jersey City, NJ  07303-3914
 
For a chronology of school programs that SCH has collaborated with through the CYS Music Education Outreach Program, click here.
 

For more information relating to the CYS Program, please contact the Artistic Director via e-mail or by phone at (888) 407-6002.

Sight-singing Classes and Summer Conservatory

Along with the Choral Scholar Program, Schola began offering sightsinging classes to interested members of the community in its very first season. Curriculum and materials for these five-session basic-skills classes were written by the Artistic Director, who also taught the classes.

Starting in the summer of 2007, Schola expanded the range and scope of the course by inaugurating its Summer Conservatory experience. Module I (first of three, and similar to the original sightsinging classes) assumes no previous experience. Many who have taken this course have sung in church and/or community choirs—largely by ear—for many years, but have an interest in connecting their aural skills and experience with actual music-reading understanding. The classes provide a safe yet challenging environment for developing music reading skills and healthy vocal skills quickly. Homework assignments reinforce the newly-learned skills. Students keep the instructive materials included with the tuition. Modules II and III build on the strengths acquired in the Module I, and are for intermediate and advanced students.

For more information relating to future plans for sightsinging classes and/or Summer Conservatory, please contact the Artistic Director via e-mail or by phone at (888) 407-6002.

Educational In-Reach

 

Weekly Class

As a demonstration of commitment to the growth of SCH’s own singers, in January 2006, Schola Cantorum on Hudson took the innovative step of providing its members with weekly pre-rehearsal classes in advanced vocal technique and assertive sight-reading skills as a benefit of membership—a truly unique offering not found in many choral organizations in this area. This offering is available only to members of Schola Cantorum on Hudson.

 

Dramatic Coaching

In recognition of the fact that musical performance is about ‘presentation’ just as much as it is about vocal technique, the cast of Schola Sings Solo is provided with a session with a well-known dramatic coach each year. SCH members who are not part of the Solo cast are encouraged to learn from this session as active observers.

Professional Development

Schola Cantorum on Hudson is accredited as a registered New Jersey Education Professional Development Provider. New Jersey public school teachers are eligible to apply for continuing education credits earned through membership and participation in our performances and educational programs.