Download – Lara Conklin

From left to right, Top left: Music teacher Bill Brendle Top right: Yellow jacket: Sadie Kieffer ’26, Ambrielle Harris ’26, Yiping Zheng ’27 Bottom left: Rachel Huang ’26 Bottom right: Audrey Kim ’23, Annabelle Grandy ’23

Morning Music

By Monica Case ’90, Director of Content Strategy

DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR, in the early morning hour of “0” block, music can be heard reverberating through the canyon. In addition to the regular chorus of frogs in the creek and the song of the birds in the trees, our student musicians, who meet in the ECOLET’s outdoor classroom, also are signaling the start of the day. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it is the Upper School Jazz Ensemble and on Tuesday and Thursday, it is the Middle School Jazz Lab. While their musical abilities may be different, their enthusiasm for playing together, whatever the temperature, is the same. These intrepid musicians are led by music teacher Greg Zilboorg, who has nothing but praise for his students, “Fifty-five degrees is truly cold – I had to buy a new jacket – but each morning the students show up smiling and ready to work. The vibe in both of the Jazz groups all throughout this year was so consistently positive and fun, and it's saying a lot when you have twelve to eighteen years olds and you're asking them to get out of bed at 6:00 a.m. or so, to come sit in the cold and damp. Yet, there they are cracking jokes and just glad to be around each other. The other thing that I love about being in the ECOLET is that we are woven into the texture of life on campus –and that is what it is all about.”

While the Upper School vocal group, Voices Now, does not meet outside, they do have to climb up the hill to the “Pink House” on Dry Canyon Cold Creek Road each morning, where they meet to rehearse during “0” block. For Bill Brendle, teacher of Voices Now, it is great for the students to have the opportunity to start the day singing. He says, “It gets them energized and I try to make it a good morning class. I really encourage student-driven activities, and then I also give them fun, unexpected activities that keeps them engaged. We always start every morning off with some yoga stretching, a little bit of exercise. Then I give them a little bit of social time because it's the first part of the day, so we just talk about what's going on. And then we get into the musical activities, whether it is learning new songs or doing group warm ups or activities that can get them singing together and resonating on a vocal leveI. I think it is really good. It helps them to be positive for the rest of the day and I'm sure it's the same with Greg’s students.”