February Newsletter
Hello Clements Choir Family!
Where did January go? It was spent making really lovely music. We’re well underway to UIL preparation. We’re so excited for you to hear their progress.
Jade Blakey | jade.blakey@fortbendisd.com
Justin Shen | justin.shen@fortbendisd.com
Singing Valentines 2026
Concert Chorale will be delivering Singing Valentine Telegrams to 5th period classes February 10th-12th. If your family wants to buy one, they will be $5 cash taken at lunch February 2nd-6th. We could use parent help selling them. Sign up here.
Booster Club Meeting | Tuesday, February 3rd @ Choir Room, 6:00PM | Booster Club Members
This is for parents/guardians who want to get involved and be “in-the-know" about what’s happening next. We will be talking about Singing Valentines, Banquet, and more! It’s not too late to join the Booster Club.
SHSU Invitational (Chamber Only) | Thursday, February 19th
We have been asked to perform at a Chamber Choir Invitational hosted by Sam Houston State University. Chamber Students, wear will leave school wearing our choir polos and jeans. You need to have your formal uniform packed in your CHS Choir Garment Bag, along with a decent looking black binder, and some $$ for Chipotle. Here is the schedule:
2:00 PM - Leave CHS via Coach bus
4:00-5:00PM - Chipotle (213 I-45, Huntsville, TX 77340) Students’ own cost
5:30-6:15 PM - Change (Holding Room- MB 202 (choir room) in choir uniform
6:20-6:40 PM – Stage Warm Up (Gaertner Performing Arts Center- 815 17th St, Huntsville, TX
77340)
6:45-7:00 PM - Combined Rehearsal with All Choirs.
7:15 PM - Choirs seated in front sections of Concert Hall
7:30 PM - Concert begins. Done by 8:45-ish.
8:45 PM-9:00 PM Change into travel clothes
9:00 PM Depart for CHS
10:45 PM Arrive to CHS
Parents, if you want to travel with us, we have spots for about 10 parents. Shoot me an email if you want to ride the charter bus!
Solo Festival | Saturday, February 28th (Students who signed up) 9am-1pm
Please make sure to pay any outstanding fees in Presto Assistant. We currently have a $550 outstanding balance of fees. The piano rehearsal can be found here. If you miss it, you are out of luck! Be sure you are practicing and have several reminders for your own pianist rehearsal. The schedule will come out soon!
Choir Recruitment/Retention- Due in SchoolLinks Feb. 13
Can you believe its course registration time? Underclassmen families, we hope your student sticks around in choir. This year has been really wonderful and it is because of the individual students here who have made such a supportive and joyful community. To re-select choir, when you login to do your course selection, choose “Choir I-IV"- the number tells you how many years in choir you have in high school. So most sophomores will put “Choir II,” etc. Remember, we take new students whether they did choir in middle school or are looking for a fun place to join as a senior. Tell them to select Choir I! It is vital you enter your courses. They base staffing decisions on the enrollment captured in Mid-February (This includes if we keep Mr. Shen on campus! We need 150 kids in choir to make it impossible for district to relocate him.) SchoolLinks opens on January 26th and closes on February 13th to do course selections.
Choir AAC starting Fall 2026
There is an exciting opportunity to earn an additional .5 GPA points through choir! Choir AAC is for students who want to go deeper into music-making and who have good practice habits outside of class. It is open to every student in the program because the “AAC” projects are all done outside the class day. Be careful when choosing to do AAC Choir. It’s a lot of work if you don’t enjoy it OR if you have never practiced regularly at home. The requirements are: Learning the first 2 rounds of the All-State music, learn 2 “Level I” solo pieces from the UIL PML (early college level in difficulty), writing a 5-6 page research paper on one of those selections, and attend 3 additional performances with a 1-page reflection over each of them. This is intense, extracurricular course work that will have additional fees attached. Please think carefully about balancing your other courses’ workloads with the considerable practice expectations needed to complete the Choir AAC coursework. We do not want kids to fail for not doing their homework!
Choir III & IV GPA Exempt
There is still the opportunity to exempt from the 4.0 GPA weight of choir after two years in the program. Students can choose to do a Pass/Fail for choir instead of getting a numeric grade that gets calculated into GPA when they are in “Choir III” or “Choir IV.” Who does this benefit? If students enroll in mostly AAC/AP Classes, a course that is weighted as a 4.0 could bring down the GPA. This affects very few students. Most benefit from the high grade that many have in choir!
If your student wants to be in Chamber Choir next year school year, they will select “Choir I-IV" in their regular course and put “Vocal Ens I” in their alternate courses. The Chamber Choir audition is April 21-22nd. Just a reminder that Chamber choir enroll in 2 periods of choir.
Volunteering for the spring:
Please sign up to help us out with our events this year! Many hands make light work!
Can you spare some time during lunch? We need parent help selling “Singing Valentines” the first week of February!
UIL Season
Please look at the calendar in March and April for UIL Clinics. These double-major grade events are where we pay for a professional colleague to come in a give us feedback. They are vital to our contest preparation, and we need every person in the room. Everyone attends Pre-UIL (1 day of March 10-12) and UIL (April 8-10). This is our state-wide evaluation of each choir’s ability to prepare advanced literature and sightread. Please join us and cheer them on!
A Cappella/Cantiamo “Mega Choir” Rehearsals
Due to a variety of factors, we are combining 4th and 7th period for contest season in “Mega Treble” (do you hear the revving of Monster Trucks?!) When negotiating with the 63 students who are involved in this ensemble (many of whom choose non varsity because they are busy outside of choir), it was incredibly difficult to find a time that works for all. We have settled on dates and times. Please respond to this email with conflicts. Conflicts will be worked through and accommodations will be made as long as they are communicated in writing by January 30th. Please chat with coaches and sponsors. We can also make the accommodation to time share with other events.
Monday, February 23rd 5-6:30pm Cancelled
Monday, March 2nd 5-6:30pm
Monday, March 9th 5-6:30pm
Monday, March 30th (Clinic) 4-5:30pm
Choir Website:
Please visit our website for the calendar, practice tracks, and other pertinent information! | clementschoir.org
Calendars:
There is an electronic calendar for all the major choir events for the year, choir leadership, musical, and all-state rehearsals. Please scroll to see all of them!
Donations:
There are a few things that we always need in the choir room. Please consider donating one or more of the following items, there are links attached for easy Amazon ordering! (any brand/amount is fine, we’re not picky!):
Upcoming Events:
March 3-5- MS UIL; CHS hosts @ Sugar Land Methodist Church
March 4- Chamber Send off Concert @ Sugar Land Methodist Church
March 7- Madrigal Festival (Chamber Choir) @ The Foundry
March 10-12- Pre-UIL (all choirs, times unreleased)
Thank you!
-Mrs. Blakey & Mr. Shen