Ripon High’s Choir Soon Intends to “Measure Up”

Since Mr. Felver’s arrival at Ripon High, the music program has taken off in ways that the student body couldn’t have ever imagined. With appearances at sports games, community events, and even a trip to honor the veterans in Washington DC last fall, the band has continued to surprise our students with fun, new music and spirit.

    However, Mr. Felver doesn’t intend to stop there. The music director wants to expand the music program even further by bringing the choir into the spotlight and increasing their involvement.

    “I want to sing at more events like rallies, sports games, and even go around and sing to students in classrooms. Once you get the students to perform more and enjoy that aspect, people will want to get more involved through beginning and advanced choir,” Felver said. 

    Mr. Felver was able to make the band a huge success by making them more visual at the school.

    Four-year band student Justin Bright says, “I’m happier that we’re recognized more as a band, but I still feel like there’s more work to be done.”

    Students agree that a sporting event isn’t the same without the band’s contagious spirit, and Mr. Felver says that he wants to take the same approach with the vocalists.

    “I know they have a good and reliable product. Beginning choir is doing a lot of Broadway pieces this year and that might increase their interest in things like theater or other forms of art where Ripon High lacks,” Felver says.

    Mr. Felver has already started to bring the choir into the spotlight. At the end of football games last year, he had his advanced choir students sing the alma mater, The Ripon High Hymn, which most of the students didn’t even know the school had despite the banner of it hanging in the north gym. Mr. Felver rewrote the piece to make it more appealing to the students with or without involvement in music.

    “Hopefully we’ll develop a culture where one group of students won’t have to stand in front of the crowd and sing our school song. We want it to be to the point where the band can play it and the choir can sing it and the whole crowd will sing along too,” Felver stated. 

    Mr. Felver believes that it will take one to two more years to make the choir as visual as band. The director wants to make sure that he has a group that can learn and perform music adequately before bringing them to the forefront.

    “It’s not about choir, it’s about what our choirs can give back to the school. If they can give Ripon High School and the community a quality service, that’s what will make them more visual, make people want to join, and help the program grow. We need to make it about the music, not about ourselves,” Felver believes.