By Tyanna Xavier – Staff Reporter 

On September 19, Jonathan Law Choir visited The University of Connecticut to attend the UConn Young Conductor Symposium.

The UConn Young Conductor Symposium is an annual event that happens once a year for choir students in high school to educate them on choral leadership and skills that will help you later on in your choir.  Although, choir is known for doing substantial performances small or big, at UConn, they learn will singing techniques on how to work on their vocal skills when performing. 

“This year was a memorable experience and had gotten more participation, the students learned how a professional college ensemble sounds like and were able to take away a lot of important information and apply it to our own ensemble,” choir instructor Mrs. Jones said.

The Jonathan Law choir has made a lot of improvement in there way of teaching and learning so everyone can cope in order for a good performance. Choir members said that they have never seen a group as committed as this one.

“The most important part about choir when singing is keeping everyone on the same page. By learning how to conduct each other it will make choir more on track when performing and giving our best performance,” senior Advanced Vocal Ensemble member Justin Amaro said.   

With the help of the music conductors and Jones learning from them as well, the choir will have more advantages when performing. 

“At UConn there were conductors there who were very experienced who taught us more techniques we can do with our voices, including breathing and coming on time with our queues,” senior Advanced Vocal Ensemble member Rani Roderick said.

Joshua East, who is a doctorate student at UConn and a part of the Connecticut ACDA, and Dr. Jamie Spillane, a Director of Choral Studies at UConn and a conductor for the CMEA regionals festival, presented on the trip the choir attended.

“I had a great experience getting to learn from Joshua East and Dr. Jamie Spillane because they are very well known at UConn,” junior Advanced Vocal Ensemble member Joey Soto said. “I’m glad Jonathan Law had the opportunity to have this experience because it will help us out a lot for the CMEA regionals festival.”

These techniques help the choir for Lake Compounce and other trips they take throughout the year, where they will compete against other schools. The Law choir has a reputation of bringing home a trophy from these competitions, and they hope to continue that tradition.

“We learned to express more when singing to bring out the emotion when performing and we also learned how to properly drop our jaws when singing for more diction,” junior Concert Choir member John Finn said. 

When singing, it is important for choir members to show emotion. Therefore, if the choir shows emotion when performing, the audience will feel it, too.