A few lucky Jordak Elementary students will soon discover life beyond the Middlefield bubble. Jordak Elementary will send six students to join the Ohio Choral Director’s Association Treble Honor Choir, an advanced one-day choral experience for 150 students in Ohio at Capital University in Bexley beginning on June 24.
“This will be their first opportunity to really be by themselves and experience music with this large a group,” Jordak Elementary music teacher Alissa Mujanovic told The Weekly Villager on May 21. “This will be the highest level of musicianship they have experienced this far and it will really give them a taste of choir of this caliber, if it is something that they want to pursue.”
The six Jordak Elementary students that will attend this event are fourth graders Olivia Frisbie, Emberlynn Ludlow, Addison Christian, Andi Fekete, Vanessa Skaife and Harper Thiel. Frisbie, Ludlow and Fekete are all altos while Christian, Skaife and Thiel each sing in the soprano range.
While at Capital University, they will rehearse with guest conductor Elizabeth Hainnhar, Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Wittenberg University. The students will participate in three full group rehearsals to learn five classical pieces throughout the day before performing in a concert later in the evening.
Mujanovic will also travel to Capital University to participate in a professional development workshop and witness her students perform. This marks the first year since Mujanovc became the music teacher at Jordak that she has nominated students to participate in the OCDA Treble Honor Choir.
While teaching at the Newbury and Kenston School Districts, Mujanovic frequently nominated students for the OCDA Treble Choir each year and continued that once she began teaching in the Middlefield School District.
“My philosophy of music education really revolves around providing students with the opportunities that I did not have,” she added. “That is always a driving factor in how I run my music programs at the schools that I have been in, so it is really important to me that I continue to push students to try and continue to follow opportunities.”
The six students who were selected are also members of Jordak’s Huskie Choir, an extra-curricular choir of third and fourth grade students that hold concerts throughout the school year to perform classical and pop music programs.. Mujanovic said the Huskie Choir has been around for awhile but had not been active for several years since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mujanovic helped revive the program and just this year the Huskie Choir had 50 members, making up 40% of the entire fourth grade at Jordak Elementary.
She said that the six students she nominated to participate in the OCDA Treble Honor Choir share a passion for music.
“These are students that are very interested in music to begin with,” she noted. “They volunteer every week to be a part of the Huskie Choir. These students are already very interested in singing and they showed a lot of interest in pursuing it farther so I nominated these students.”
In addition to being selected to join the OCDA Treble Honor Choir, Mujanovic added that the six students represent the best of Middlefield and will demonstrate the values of a small community at an event that will welcome students from some of the largest schools in the State of Ohio.
“If you look at the roster of schools that are attending, they are primarily much larger schools and much larger cities,” she said. “It really means a lot to have representation from a small community like Middlefield.”
Mujanovic acknowledged that the six Jordan Elementary students will also be thrust outside of their comfort zone, traveling to a much bigger city but sees it as an excellent growing opportunity for them.
“I am very excited for them to experience not only meeting new students but seeing that music is something that can be loved and pursued from kids all over,” she said. “Middlefield is diverse but it is not as diverse as many places in the State and I think these students will have a chance to really experience other cultures.”
While the six students are still in the early stages of their musical education, Mujanovic said that the OCDA Treble Honor Choir will be an excellent way for them gauge whether or not they want to purse a musical career.
“It’s very rewarding to see them perform and feel proud of their performance and feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership in their musicianship and to know they are capable of musicianship, it is everything.”
