{"id":4150,"date":"2010-11-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4150"},"modified":"2014-07-07T19:23:06","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T02:23:06","slug":"noozhawk-talks-paul-freeman-gives-fresh-voice-to-santa-barbara-childrens-chorus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4150","title":{"rendered":"Noozhawk Talks: Paul Freeman Gives Fresh Voice to Santa Barbara Children’s Chorus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Paul<\/a>

Paul Freeman, artistic director of the Santa Barbara Children\u2019s Chorus, says there a number of reasons the community needs a children\u2019s choir opportunity: \u201cWe had 60 or 70 kids audition and maybe 10 percent of them could sing well. Here are a bunch of kids who are clearly interested and they had all done musicals. They had all been doing all of the theater programs in town but none of them had been getting vocal training.\u201d (Elite Henenson \/ Noozhawk photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Revival of program is first step in plan to give kids more chances to sing<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Santa Barbara Children’s Chorus<\/a> is getting a gleeful reprieve, thanks to local
\nbusinessman Paul Freeman. He didn’t even know of the dormant choir’s
\nexistence when he decided, several years ago, that Santa Barbara needed a
\nbetter choral program for children and that he should be the one to give it to
\nthem.<\/p>\n

“It was a back-of-mind, pet project\/goal of mine for years and I’m excited to be
\nable to finally do it, and do it in a way where I don’t have to worry so much about
\nmaking money doing it,” explains Freeman, a UCSB graduate. He was a child
\nsinger and sang and toured with the Golden State Boys Choir, studied voice with
\nPeggy Norcross and performed with the Santa Barbara Camarata Choir, UCSB
\nMen’s Chorus and Mixed Choir and the Santa Barbara Symphony.<\/p>\n

As president and owner of Professional Development Partners, a business
\nconsulting firm for high tech companies, Freeman is now in a position to give
\nback to the community, filling what he sees as a void in student’s musical
\ntraining. When Freeman and his wife Tracy–who both grew up in town–returned
\nto Santa Barbara in 2008 with their two sons (Cole, now 13, and Parker, age 9)
\nhe joined long-time theater friend, Clark Sayre, and has been co-directing the
\nSpring musical at Dos Pueblos High School for the past two seasons, an
\nexperience which further underscored the need for better music education in
\ntown.<\/p>\n

“The weakest area for the kids was singing. We had 60 or 70 kids audition and
\nmaybe 10 percent of them could sing well,” says Freeman. “Here are a bunch of
\nkids that are clearly interested and they had all done musicals. They had all been
\ndoing all of the theater programs in town but none of them had been getting vocal
\ntraining.”<\/p>\n

He found that while there were many instrument programs in the elementary
\nschools, there were virtually no singing programs.<\/p>\n

“The original plan was to start up a for-profit choir and then turn it into a nonprofit
\nonce we got it up and running,” explains Freeman, who began teaching in 1984
\nas Assistant Artistic Director of the Santa Barbara Children’s Theater, where he
\nwrote and directed musicals “for children, by children.” He continued working with
\nthe Children’s Theater after moving to Los Angeles in 1989, where he
\nestablished the West Valley Children’s Chorus, which he ran for several
\nyears.<\/p>\n

When he began doing research for the Santa Barbara project, Freeman
\ndiscovered the Santa Barbara Children’s Chorus, which was no longer active.
\nThe timing to take over the nonprofit was perfect because it was “out of money
\nand out of momentum,” while Freeman and his team-which consists of himself
\nas Artistic Director, and Stephanie Hein Muench as Musical Director-were
\nready to pick up the ball and run with it.<\/p>\n

Winter session auditions for the non-denominational choir will be held between
\n10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday, December 11 at the Unitarian Society of Santa
\nBarbara, 1535 Santa Barbara Street. If children have an audition song they will
\nbe asked to perform it. However, Freeman emphasized that “it’s an inclusive
\ngroup, meaning if you sign up you can get in. We want to make music available
\nto anybody. The audition process is to help us understand what their skill level
\nis.”<\/p>\n

He is looking to target children in grades 4-8, to give them proper vocal training
\nbefore they get to high school. “It’s no secret that money for a lot of that stuff has
\nbeen cut. The schools that do have choral programs are funded through
\nfundraising by PTA or some other outside group. There is very little public
\nfunding.”<\/p>\n

Freeman applies his management skills to his plans for the chorus. “Long-term
\nthere are three things that we want to do,” he says. “The first is a fee-based
\nprogram with scholarships available. The idea is to try to get anybody who comes
\nin regardless of skill level or economic situation, and the curriculum is a
\ncombination of group singing, solo singing and music theory.”<\/p>\n

The students will be exposed to an eclectic array of music. Inspired in part by the
\npopular TV series “Glee,” Freeman plans to start a performance choir summer
\ncamp to help attract more kids to the program.<\/p>\n

Once the classes get up and running, the plan is to start an all schools choir.
\n“This would be an outreach program to all the schools that are interested in
\nparticipating,” he explains. “We would hold in-school auditions and take five or
\nten kids per school, depending on how many kids there are, at no cost to them.
\n… We would have one rehearsal a month during the school year and then put on
\na big, all-school concert at a venue like the Santa Barbara Bowl, the Lobero or
\nthe Arlington.”<\/p>\n

The third phase of the evolution will be to develop what Freeman describes as a
\nmusic franchise program. “This is being done in other big cities, like Chicago
\nChildren’s Choir has this killer program where they put choral teachers in the city
\nschools and they bring the whole curriculum of the main program into the schools
\nas little modules.”<\/p>\n

This is clearly a project driven by passion for Freeman, a former professional
\nchef at some of Los Angeles’ top restaurants, who now serves on the Goleta<\/a>
\n Valley Junior High<\/a> PTA Board and coaches and referees AYSO soccer in his
\n“spare” time. An admittedly very driven and busy guy, he says, “I always get
\nasked how do I manage to do all that stuff and I don’t always know the answer.”<\/p>\n

Freeman says, “These programs are going to take some time to roll out but the
\nmessage I want to get across to people is that there’s some meat on this idea of
\nwhat to do with the choir. It’s not like we’re just trying to get some classes
\nrunning and that’s it. We’d really like to make this more institutional. I have a lot
\nof attention on getting it to the point where it’s self-sustaining, where it’s not
\nreliant on one or two people to make the thing happen, because that’s what
\nhappens in these groups. You see it all the time.”<\/p>\n

When asked to come up with three adjectives to describe himself, Freeman says
\nhe’s “optimistic, goal-oriented and creative,” all qualities which will serve him well
\nin his new choir venture. “It’s sort of a puzzle to figure out and I have pretty high
\naspirations for it,” he acknowledges. “If I wasn’t running a business that was
\ndealing in very huge deals it might seem more challenging. A lot of people would
\nsee this as a big project and a lot of challenges, but for me, compared to some of
\nthe other stuff at work I’ve got going on right now, it’s pretty straightforward. I
\nfeel like it’s doable.”<\/p>\n

Originally published in Noozhawk<\/a>\u00a0on November 22, 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n

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