Dear Potential SV Singers,
I asked the singers in SV3 (4th and 5th graders) what they would want to know if they were just thinking about joining Sisters’ Voices, and these are the questions they came up with.
I have added a few questions that might be on the mind of singers in Middle School and High School.
If you have other questions, please feel free to reach out to me by email (leandra@sistersvoices.org), or ask your in-home adult to reach out to me. : )
Looking forward to meeting you!
Leandra (Artistic Director of Sisters’ Voices)
SV1 refers to children who are 3years old through first grade. There are two different groups of SV singers: 3-5 year olds (pre-kindergarten), and kindergarten through first grade.
SV2 includes singers in 2nd and 3rd grades.
SV3 includes singers in 4th and 5th grades, and may include a few singers in 3rd grade. Singers entering SV3 get together with me (Leandra) for a lesson, and there we decide on your placement for the coming year – in the ensemble, or in the Stepping In class.
SV4 includes singers in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Singers entering SV4 get together with me (Leandra) for a lesson, and there we decide on your placement for the coming year – in the ensemble, or in the Stepping In class.
SV5 includes singers in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Singers wishing to enter SV5 get together with me (Leandra) for an audition, and there I’ll decide on your placement for the coming year.
Each ensemble has its own scheduled meeting time(s) each week.
SV1 meets for 45 minutes each week, and the times for those rehearsals is varied.
SV2 meets for one hour each week, on Thursdays from 4:00 until 5:00.
SV3 meets for one hour on Mondays, 4:15-5:15, AND 90 minutes on Thursdays, 5:15-6:45.
SV4 meets on Saturday afternoons AND either Tuesday or Wednesday, 5:30-6:45 – the singer gets to choose which weekday based on her schedule (sometimes sports meet one of these two days, and the singer selects the other. It’s okay to change days during the year.). The Saturday rehearsal is mandatory for all SV4 singers.
SV5 meets on Saturday afternoons AND Thursday evenings, 7:00-9:00. Both rehearsals are mandatory every week.
Here are the details of the Saturday rehearsals for SV4 and SV5:
The first and third Saturday of each month, SV5 meets from 2:00 until 4:45, and SV4 meets from 4:00 until 8:00 (this time includes rehearsal, dinner, and Leadership meeting)
The second and fourth Saturday, SV4 meets from 2:00 until 3:45, and SV5 meets from 4:00 until 8:00 (this time includes rehearsal, dinner, and Leadership meeting)
Sisters’ Voices is a community of people who can see themselves in the word ‘Sister’. Many of the singers are girls and young women. Some identify in other ways.
Singers entering as 4th graders and older meet with me (Leandra) to sing together and learn a little, and then I’ll make a decision about their placement. I’m looking for a singer’s ability to match pitch, to be able to sing along with a song that they know already, to be able to learn music, and to be focused and able to take direction. Every singer brings different skills to the group, and I honor all of them.
Our rehearsals are sometimes long, and I want to know that new singers will be ready to engage with the demands of our rehearsals and of our music. We do have singers who deal with ADHD and other neurodiversities, and we honor the remarkable contributions that singers who think differently make to our community! I look forward to getting to know you!
Part of the Placement Lesson is determining what singers know already, what they’re able to do, what their focus is like, and how determined they are to learn. If you’re coming into SV1 or SV2, you don’t need to know anything. And you will learn a LOT in rehearsals.
If you’re coming in as a 4th grader or older, I’ll meet with you and will be looking for how you focus, what your voice sounds like when you sing alone or with me, your eagerness to learn new things. The most important thing is that you love to sing. The second thing I’ll be looking for is how you use your voice, and whether you can sing along with me on a song that you know already.
Then I’ll give you a piece of music, and we’ll have a conversation to see what you can tell me about that music – anything about the meter, key, form. I might ask about specific notes or other markings in the music. I’ll want to know to what extent you form an idea of what the music sounds like by looking at it on the page. But this is something that people spend entire lives learning to do – I don’t expect you to know everything! I want to explore what you do know already, how you learn, how you think of yourself in the process of learning, and then I want to decide how you might fit with the group for the coming year.
Yes! Come join us!
Our rehearsal space is at Binkley Church, 1712 Willow Drive in Chapel Hill.
We have a room in Binkley’s Education wing, near the Preschool, Room 15.
Most years we perform three of our own concerts, and then also sometimes appear in the community at festivals and other events. Our own concerts are usually at Binkley, in their Fellowship Hall or Sanctuary. Other performances have been in various places in Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, Pittsboro, Siler City …
Singers in elementary ensembles (grades K-5) wear white blouses and black pants, with black shoes. Each singer chooses her own, as long as they fit into our guidelines.
Singers in middle school (grades 6-8) wear black blouses and black pants, with black shoes.
Singers in high school (grades 9-12) will have new outfits for the 25-26 season! We’re working on identifying them now.
We try to feel dressed up AND comfortable when we perform.
When we sing for festivals and other outdoor events, we wear Sisters’ Voices t-shirts and jeans or shorts, depending on the weather.
You can find more information about our attire (and other things!) in our Handbook.
We often sing in languages other than English! We’ve done lots – Spanish, Italian, French, Swahili, Malay, Thai, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Zulu, Xhosa, Dutch, German, Ladino … and many others!
Even though we rehearse in a church, we are not a religious organization. We welcome singers of all backgrounds. Most of our songs are not religious, but occasionally we will sing a piece with religious references. For example, much of the amazing repertoire that came from the Africans who were enslaved here in the US, called Spirituals, is religious. Spirituals are the roots of Blues, Jazz, Rock, Rap … all kinds of popular music today. Because the lives of the slaves were so hard, they relied on religion to help get them through, and their music was infused with religion. So when we sing Spirituals, we sometimes talk about religion because of its cultural importance.
Probably not. If you have a friend who is also singing, you may be aware of that, but we probably won’t announce the roster until after the first rehearsal. This gives people a little wiggle room for late decisions.
I realize people will be nervous for their first rehearsal! Take a deep breath (in for four beats, hold it for four, and breathe out for eight beats), and trust yourself! We will focus a lot in the first rehearsals on making sure everyone knows everyone else – names are superficial and also very important to our ability to feel comfortable interacting with each other. Get curious about other singers, and we’ll all work on finding ways to connect to each other.
There are age groups!
In SV3, SV4, and SV5 singers who are in the ensembles have a basic level of skill that will allow them to engage with music together, to sing in parts, to read music.
Yes! A positive attitude!
And a full water bottle.
It also helps if you wear clothing that allows for easy movement.
Everyone takes their shoes off for rehearsals, so shoes that are easy-on and easy-off are helpful.
Every singer is issued a binder at the beginning of the year where she keeps her music and a pencil for rehearsals. These are kept on a shelf in our rehearsal space. If a singer decides to take her music home to practice, she must be sure to bring it back because it is essential to her ability to learn in rehearsal.
Anywhere from one to three hours, depending on your ensemble.
The older you are, the longer your rehearsals will be.
If the rehearsal is an hour and a half long or longer, we usually take a short break for chatting with friends, getting water, and using the bathroom. For shorter rehearsals we usually work straight through.
When singers arrive, they leave their phones in pockets on the wall. The phones stay there throughout the rehearsal.
When we travel together, the leaders hold the phones, and singers are allowed to call home once a day, or as needed. Parents may reach out to me if they need to get ahold of their child.
When people have their phones, they sit staring at them. When they don’t have their phones, they talk and play games with each other.
Here’s the thing: when we are together without our phones, we are more present and engaged with each other. We’re not distracted by people from outside the room or by apps that alert us.
Also, phones divide us. Not everyone has a phone. Have you ever sat, without a phone, with a person who can’t take her eyes off her phone? Did you feel left out? Was it hard to get her attention?
Even adults have trouble taking their attention away from their phones and benefit from breaks from their phones.
Same as phones. Mostly a smart watch is an extension of a phone, just attached more firmly to you. So let’s detach from that and get to know each other!
Not if you’re in SV1 or SV2. But you can if you want to!
For SV3, 4, and 5, sometimes you do.
Sometimes SV singers practice without even trying to, because the music is running through their minds all the time.
Sometimes we plan to perform music from memory, and singers need to put in a little extra work on memorizing.
If you miss rehearsal, you’ll need to make sure you know what happened in that rehearsal, and you might need to practice extra so you won’t feel behind. (Coming back after missing a rehearsal and finding that the group has made a lot of progress on music can be very discouraging. Spending a little time with your music to catch up can feel empowering and is helpful to everyone.)
It’s funny – when teachers and other adults talk about children, they sometimes comment on how “respectful” a child is. I guess respectfulness is important to everyone!
I am the main teacher, and it is very important to me to treat you the way I want to be treated: kindly and respectfully. In my classroom I want you to know that you are safe, respected, and that you have room to be yourself.
I want the same from you.
For example, I like to be called Leandra (not Miss Leandra, not Ms. Strope). I consider it a sign of respect that people call me Leandra because it’s what I like to be called. Still, I realize that some parents want their children to call adults by their title (Miss or Ms. or Mrs.) as a sign of respect. Please help your parents understand what I will find respectful.
I will call you by the name you would like to be called, and I hope you will call me Leandra, as a sign of respect in both ways.
I choose to work with other adults, other teachers, who want to be in a mutually respectful environment. I believe they will be respectful to you and to each other, and that their classrooms will be safe spaces.
We all – you, me, others – will rely on everyone in the room to help create a culture that supports this respectfulness.
Well, again, I am the main teacher, but certainly not the only teacher.
Sometimes I worry that my singers, especially SV4 and SV5, would make more progress if I were stricter.
I want, and plan to work to create, more strict restrictions on how many rehearsals a singer may miss and still remain in the SV4 and SV5 ensembles – we simply can’t accomplish our work when people are missing often or for stretches of time.
It’s important to me that my students are learning and are taking charge of their own learning – I can lead you there, but I cannot do the work for you!
And it’s important to me that we are building strong relationships and that we are happy learning together.
I do like to start and end on time, and I ask families to respect and protect the time we have together because it is precious; we cannot get started until everyone is in the room. I do ask singers to help with clean up after rehearsal. We can enjoy doing it together!
A person cannot eat while she is singing well – she will choke! So we don’t have people snacking (or sucking on candy or chewing gum) during rehearsals.
At the same time, it’s really hard to learn when you’re starving, so a snack before rehearsal is a good idea. If you’re singing well, you are getting a physical workout. Don’t be hungry.
SV4 and SV5 do have opportunities to travel together. We take a retreat in the spring, sometimes go short distances to perform, and may choose to attend a choral festival together. This summer (2025) we went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where we performed in the Queen City Choral Festival with other choruses from all over North America! Next summer SV5 has been invited to participate in a festival in San Diego, California.
We practice together to get ready for performances. When someone who has practiced with us, someone the group is depending on, doesn’t show up for the concert, it can be really hard for the rest of the ensemble – first, it changes the way the group sounds, and then singers cannot depend on the things they learned to lean on in rehearsal; second, it can just be a bummer for the rest of the group to know that a singer chose something else over performing with the group.
So please do your best to be at every performance!
If you’re new to singing and are not sure you want to commit to performing, please know that by the time you get to the performance, you will know the music very well and will have become part of an incredible group of people that you can count on! We will have worked hard together, and you will know that you can do it!
We have a practice in Sisters’ Voices that people often are invited to sing for the group, to demonstrate the work they’re doing. The rest of the group is challenged to listen and watch carefully, and then to give the singer feedback about things they did well. We all come to understand our strengths this way, and we build from our strengths. Singers being acquainted with each other’s strengths and learning edges means that everyone is always helping everyone.
But the shorter answer is no – you do not have to sing solos in rehearsal unless you want to. I don’t push singers to do things they’re not comfortable doing.
And you may not believe this now, but someday you might feel great about singing a solo in rehearsal. Who knows?
One step, one day at a time. We’ll see what happens!
You cannot do both. It’s important to make a choice.
When a person is doing two activities that meet at the same time, she will be only partially present for each of them, not really doing either fully. It hurts her, and it hurts the others in the group because they cannot count on her.
My expectation for singers in SV ensembles is that they will have no other activity that regularly meets at the same time as SV rehearsals. I understand that there will be times when a singer is sick or has a family emergency, but otherwise singers need to be present for the entirety of every rehearsal.
Crutches are great if that’s the way you move around in the world!
All of us have differing abilities – in our whole lives, and from time to time.
When you choose to join the SV community, we hope it will be because you love to sing, you want to sing with a group, and you want to learn to do it better and better. Crutches, glasses, hearing aids, braces, casts, wheelchairs, whatever helps you get around in the world – bring ‘em on!
If you are sick.
If you have a performance for a school class.
If you will present a project at a science fair.
If you have a death in your family.
If your family has an emergency.
If your car gets a flat tire on the way to rehearsal.
Note that these things are not on the list:
Homework.
Studying for a test.
Birthday parties.
Driver’s Ed.
We need to talk about:
Plays and Musicals.
There are currently singers in SV5, our high school ensemble, who have been singing with us since elementary school. The fact that they keep coming back, and that the friendships they have built at Sisters’ Voices are so important to them, says a lot without using any words!
When I ask why people sing in Sisters’ Voices, they usually start by saying, “because it’s fun!”
After deeper reflection, people say they like to sing because it gives them an outlet, it connects them to their emotions, and it connects them to other people. They make close friends. They learn a lot about themselves and the world around them. They get experience standing up and using their voices in front of an audience. They learn to work with their nerves.
I suspect some of the older singers would say they think it will look good on their college transcript too.
Learning to match pitch and “carry a tune” can take a while, but I have never met a person who I thought couldn’t learn to do it. Singing well is an act of unifying your ears and your voice and your body to create a beautiful or interesting sound. Some people are surprised to learn that singing is about your hearing more than about your voice.
Singing is learned, like speaking a language is learned.
If you grew up with people who speak English, then speaking English is probably part of your nature. Similarly, if you grew up singing with your family, then singing is probably part of your nature.
If you didn’t grow up speaking English, but then you try to start learning to speak English, the older you are, the harder it might be to get into the habit of it, to get to the point where you actually even think in English. The same is true with singing.
Then there’s the reading and the writing of music, which takes study and learning, just like with any language. It can take a lifetime, and learning it holds great value.
I encourage you to come sing an audition for me. If you need help with learning to match pitch and carry a tune, we can talk about options. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll learn.
You should hear from me within two or three days of your Audition. But you’re likely to know something at your Audition – I will let you know what I’m thinking, and I hope you’ll let me know what you’re thinking too.
Singers in SV4 and SV5 begin to formally explore their personal values and talk together about agency and influence, about intention in our relationships with our families and friends, and about our responses to issues in our school communities and in the wider world.
SV4 and SV5 have rehearsals on Saturday afternoons, and twice a month the singers stay after rehearsal, have dinner together, and have a Leadership program: a conversation, training session, or just something fun together.
