SEDONA, AZ - Jeanie Carroll, vocalist and K-8 music teacher, will be starting up a chorus in September with a tiny twist. "Do you sing along to the radio? Do you sing in the shower? Do you sing along to the musak at Basha's while grocery shopping? (OK, maybe that last one is just me.)

I would like to invite you to sing in a group where most of the songs have World Unity for the theme. I would also like kids to be a focus of the chorus. My vision is that kids sing WITH their parents or significant grown-ups in their lives. The tiny twist is, if your child is between 7 & 13, you must accompany them and be part of the chorus.

If you know a child who loves to sing and you do, too, but it's not "your" child, you can perhaps act as a mentor to that child and bring him or her to rehearsals with their parents' permission. I am the music teacher of West Sedona School and we would like to sponsor a Community Chorus. The vocal "lessons" will happen in my classroom, Room 604.

We will learn singing techniques to help us be "all that we can be". This is open to the COMMUNITY's children, not just West Sedona Wildcats. All singing young people 7 & up are invited with a grown-up! If you know someone 14 and older, he or she may attend without a grown-up and will be treated as one. There will be a $25 registration fee per "couple" (child & grown-up) or $15 for one grown-up. This fee will be used toward starting up a costume fund so that we can design a t-shirt that will show our unity.

Our first performance will be at the 12th Annual International Festival of Food & Song which is held the Monday and Tuesday evenings before Thanksgiving break. The students of West Sedona School become Ambassadors for Peace from various countries. They wear their country's colors, a flag tag, and sing songs in the language of that country. The best local restaurants and parents donate food and it becomes a huge Thanksgiving celebration where the kids realize that we all coexist peacefully in the USA and we should celebrate our similarities and our differences. At the end of the show, of course, they all sing songs together like Shondra's Children's Anthem. It's an event that's very close to my heart. I would like to get the community involved in that program and in other performances.

There are many performance opportunities in and around Sedona. Sessions will start September 2 at 6pm. All other lessons will be on Wednesdays at 6:30pm. So, plan on Wednesday nights being your musical night out where you will set a wonderful example for our young people by being there each week. The only pre-requisite is that you love to sing!   Please help spread the word!   Thank you!"    Jeanie Carroll   928-300-7092