Our people: Passion for choral music

Apr. 29—Choral music has always been the main passion for Sean Galloway, the director of choirs at Clovis High School, and this year the payoff has been a state championship for the school's chamber choir, as well as top honors for the Wildcats' Women's Select choir.

Galloway came to Clovis 10 years ago with his wife Diana on what they call "our Great Southwest Adventure," an escape for cold, snowy winters in Michigan, where both grew up and attended college.

With his choir students involved in testing Wednesday, Galloway had time to talk with The News about music, teaching and the impact music has on the lives of his students.

Here are our questions and his responses.

Q. The Clovis choirs have won some titles recently.

A. Yes. We've competed five times. Our chamber choir has been in the top three four times, and our women's select choir has been in the top three all five times.

It's been a continued tradition of excellence and hard work. Every year the kids come in after the ones that graduate, and they're just hungry to keep singing and perform well.

This year was the chamber choir's first time to win the competition. It was a big deal for them. They've gotten close, but they've never gotten over the top.

Q. Who were the competition?

A. We compete with 10 other schools, all 5A-size schools in the state, including Piedra Vista (in Farmington), Hobbs, Rio Rancho, and Cleveland High School to name a few. We always compete against the bigger schools, based on school size.

Q. How long have you taught in Clovis?

A. This is my 15th year of teaching but my 10th in Clovis. I taught at a couple of schools in Michigan, then I moved here and took the job at the Freshman Academy for two years, then I came here. This is my eighth year at Clovis High.

Q. What do you do to bring out the best in the kids?

A. The first thing I do is establish a strong relationship with them — positive rapport. I just try to create an environment where the kids can be themselves and know this is place where they can be safe and work together with students from other backgrounds. We have athletes, scholars, students that are involved in band, fine arts, foreign language. Basically, any group on campus that wants to get involved in choir, we make it happen.

We try to do everything within the school day.so they can have jobs and other events out of class

But I'd say the main thing we do is just try to create an environment where the kids want to be part of their own success. That allows us to work together to achieve a goal of winning competitions and making beautiful music.

I find that if the kids are excited to be here and looking forward to class, they're very wjlling to learn and challenge themselves and just create place where the learning can happen a lot easier, compared to me just lecturing, and so we work together as a team.

Q. What kind of work do you do with the kids?

A. Basically, we have a set of ways. We do daily warmups and vocal exercises, and then we do sight reading every day, It's good for the kids so they learn to read music on their own.

Once they understand it, they get excited to do it because it's something they can be successful at. Some days we'll do regular rehearsals with the whole group or sometimes we'll do sectional practice.

Q. What kind of assistance do you have?

A. My assistant Sarah Sena is a huge help. She helps run those sectionals, and she helps with keeping everybody in the same spot when it comes to accompaniment, tempo, things like that. She's on top of a lot of those little things that people don't always notice.

That's our daily routine. And I gear it toward what we need for that specific week, whatever we're trying to accomplish. When there is a section of music that needs work, we just come up with different wasy to attack it, and hopefully they're able to learn it, quickly enough.

Q. The band has been winning a lot of awards, too. Is there a friendly rivalry?

A. Not really, because we share a lot of kids. We want both groups to do well. I support the band kids, and make sure I let them know that whenever I get a chance, I go to their performance. It's hard because we share so many kids, but for me, music is music whether they're singing or playing.

Q. What do you want the kids to get out of music?

A. I want to make sure the kids have a wonderful experience and will want to continue with music after high school. That's always my biggest goal — if I can get kids scholarships for singing or playing, or if I can get them to continue to do music.

I feel like that's something that's being lost. In a lot of areas. They do it in high school and once they finish, they stop, and they're done. And you see that in church choirs, community choirs. They need more people to just keep singing. So for me, if they can continue to perform in some way, that's a win.

It doesn't mean I don't recruit and try to get more kids as much as I can.

Q. Where did you study music?

A. At Alma College in Alma, Mich., I got a bachelor's in Music Education. I was qualified to teach choir, band and orchestra. Choir was my passion, so that was my main focus. Later, I got a master's degree in Educational Leadership from Saginaw Valley State in Michigan.

Q. Who are your favorite composers?

A. I have several. There is Joseph M. Martin who writes amazing sacred music, and Z. Randall Stroope, who is from New Mexico and is known internationally. We have performed a couple of his pieces.

Jacob Narverud is another one. He's a new composer doing a lot of news songs and putting them in arrangements that choirs can use. It's fun. A lot of times kids will hear a song and say, "Aw, we should sing this," but there is not a choir arrangement. One example from Narverud is "Speechless" from the live action "Aladdin" movie.

Among classical composers, we just did "Lacrimosa" from Mozart's Requiem Mass with the mixed choir. That will be the all-state piece next year. We'll be looking into doing it next fall.

Q. Have the band and chorus ever done a joint performance?

A. Not with the band, but we did a combination concert with the West Texas A&M choirs and orchestra at Christmas time.

We've had a lot of (music) clinicians come in. They bring combos and we work with them. We've worked with WTAMU, the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State, Wayland Baptist and Texas Tech. The clinicians put things into a perspective the kids understand and that helps us get really successful.

I can't say enough about how the kids are willing to do the hard work. It's not me. I'm up there waving my arms, but it's them, wanting to be successful.

Q. What other music activities are you involved with in the community?

A. Currently, I direct a children's choir at the Clovis Christian School. That's been a lot of fun. I also give private piano and vocal lessons. I don't perform. I don't really get a chance to. It's just directing the kids.

Q. What do you do when you're not doing music?

A. In the very little time I get, I love spending time with my family. My wife Diana and I have two daughters, Lyric, who is seven, and Ivy, who is four. I try to spend a lot of time with them, taking them to dance and just doing the family thing. I like spending a lot of time with them. We've been teaching them some music. My wife home-schooled for a long time and now she's teaching kindergarten at Clovis Christian.

Over the summer we travel to Michigan with them to visit family. We spent three years in Grand Rapids, Mich., before we came here for our "Great Southwestern Adventure," as we call it. I really appreciate not having nearly as much snow. I could deal with it, but I was done with it. The shoveling, etc. I could deal with.

We're going to have to go back for my wife's brother's wedding around Christmas time. The girls are excited. They love snow. I'll be sitting inside by the heater.