good evening i'm goldstein and welcome to another edition of this week in education tonight my guest is choir director vincent the towel who's here to talk about the upcoming special concert that will be having over at the princeton university chapel honoring know william very special concert absolutely so this past march bill trigo passed away and we received several e mails and phone messages from various alum from both princeton high school and princeton university and we thought this would be a great opportunity to maybe provide some kind of collaborative effort to celebrate the life of bill trigo who like you said was there at the high school for twenty eight years and of course you know this community is is a huge choral music community and so i'm very good friends with the choir director at princeton university gabriel crouch he and i decided to have a meeting and we thought why not celebrate the amazing work of bill to go then put together this beautiful memorial concert which would feature princeton high school choir it would feature princeton university choir the princeton university trigo singers which is another choir of course with bill trios name them and to do a wonderful event that would just celebrate his life and the amazing accolades he had within the choral choral world so i just like to talk a little bit about bill this is a very funny story when i was an undergraduate school at the university of hartford my one of my mentors said hey you should come and look at westminster choir college which of course is right across the street from princeton high school and i had mentioned to him in my studies that i probably want to continue and study choral music in graduate school and be a great conductor so he took about four of us to come visit westminster and so we were watching these masterful conductors robert shaw joseph la mer felt they were doing all this incredible music of mozart and handle and so we watched this rehearsal and one of the famous director said hey by the way before you leave princeton you should go across the street and see what's going on at princeton high school and i was like ok you know i've heard of the high school but because you know it has a great reputation but let's go check it out so we walk into two at the time which is now the library but the original auditorium bill was conducting  was at the piano and they were over her sing this beautiful mozart mass and there were probably seventy five singers standing up and it sounded like a university choir it had the report of the students it was pretty spectacular you know just the whole of the repertoire itself was very advanced for a high school level so i was i was just shocked i couldn't believe it was a high school choir i'm doing that and happy to be celebrating my eleventh year in this in this role but what was so incredible about that experience was it really unraveled the relationships within this community that i not only did i learn so much about bill trigo in my time in this community but his relationship with nancy and perella who is very well known she was the associate girl director at princeton high school for all of bill's tenure and she's a very dear friend of mine and so we're thrilled that she's going to be taking part in this event as well so let's just talk a little bit about the event i thought i mean there's a whole day of activities yeah you got to let's talk about the whole day so what's happening is we've invited the princeton high school alum to come back to p h s a thirty in the morning on november seventeenth and they're going to you know visit the new facility which is not really new anymore but for them it will be new  show them our practice rooms our choir room the stage we've assembled thirty of our students to put together a little mini representation of what we do so they're going to sing a few selections but mostly we're go talk about how the program that bill in nancy and established in the seventy's eighty's and early ninety's is continuing and really thriving at p h s so we want the students to share their stories and their information with the a lot to interact with a lot of course so then we're going to bust the a lot over to princeton university and we're going to collaborate on four selections they're going to sing with the princeton university alum and they're going to do two great selections one of the things i also want to talk about is bill was a huge advocate for music from other countries he wanted the  all these different languages and if you listen to the many recordings that they made they primarily with thing in german latin a little bit of english and some french and some italian so he was a huge advocate of the german choral repertoire and so we decided that we would we would feature two great choral masterworks of your highness brahms and the alum will we'll practice those songs for a couple of hours in that saturday afternoon and then they will you know go into the university university chapel and rehearse those in the space then my choir of ninety five and the princeton university choir combined choirs of ninety five will join on for selections as well so you're going to hear probably almost four to five hundred people singing these works together which is going to be amazing sound in the chapel  the important thing about this this particular concert that we want to stress is we are celebrating the amazing work that bill did and how he changed so many lives through music and to really celebrate that we've asked his daughter kimberly can really sacks to come and speak and so she's going to do she's going to present a little speech we've also asked perella to speak a little bit and then we've asked to allow one from each institution to stand up and talk at the at the concert as well the nice yes that's so i mean what better than you know to just all come together and make this happen so expect a lot of people to come so we're expecting a lot of people so in putting this all together and from all of these amazing correspondence that we have had with a lot and some musical folk in the community we decided that you know we would have this extensive day which would then conclude with this concert at seven thirty pm and so what's going to happen after we were hurst just to finish the schedule after we were hearse we're going to have a big luncheon at the university and we've invited all the people who are participating which is almost two hundred right now to join us for a lunch at the university will be showing the video that's been put together and made by a p h s alum who has taken some photographs that bill had in his archives and some other alum have sent us and just to feature that just to show everybody give them some glimpses of what happened you know what tours they went on what great experiences they have photographs of program notes etc etc and just to you know have a moment together to just to collaborate on our own experiences and  so that will be that and then you know the event will happen at seven thirty so pretty special it's kinda verse but yeah and i know that those really been honored by a verse special donation of new st way made by his daughter and son in law and maybe you can tell us a little bit about that and you know just a little bit about that so kimberly sachs called me in the spring and she said you know as you know my father passed away my husband and i would like to make a donation to the to the choir and can you give me you know your wish list what's on the top of your list where you know your students are really in dire need of war or we could assist and i said actually there's two things one your father helped institute this amazing tradition that we have in our community which is taking our choir our orchestra our band as well but our choir abroad internationally  the purpose is to have you know an incredible experience in another country singing music from that from that culture but also to allow everybody in the choir to have the opportunity to go not just the families who can afford it so bill and nancy were huge advocates of that and they traveled every three years or so for maybe every four years and we in our district now offer every other year this opportunity for our kids which is so great so i said it would be great to start a scholarship you know foundation in bill's name where we can help support the families who would need some assistance the second thing was about a year ago our department was talking about maybe starting a capital campaign to raise funds to get a new grand piano for the performing arts center and so as you know we were thinking about that we were coming up with some ideas i just happened to mention that to kimberly and she said well can you give me more information about that and so i provided her with some numbers and some you know ideas of what we were looking at and what kinds of instruments et so a week went by and she said my husband bruce and i would like to make a donation of a new grand piano for the performing arts center as you know so i can't even begin to tell you you know how we're still in awe of this and my colleague sarah pelletier and i went to steinway and picked out the instrument and chose the exact one the one that would sound beautiful in our hall so we featured that exact instrument this past saturday we did in all german concert to celebrate the music of vienna where we're going in the music of schubert but it was a great way to show off this beautiful new instrument we were we were so thrilled to be able to do that and so thankful that that you know bill's family wants to keep his legacy through music which we will use every single day the three don't asia and something the last for a long time and yeah  to yeah and just to give you another example we we've actually shied away from doing a lot of music with piano over the last two or three years because the instrument was really lacking and so the orchestra is doing a performance this coming friday night featuring a student at the juilliard school of music in new york and will be playing our new steinway in the full orchestra will be accompanying her so another great use of the instrument that will continue now is  of going to a few different places but when bill passed sarah and i were looking at the various tours that the choir had been on and we have not been to vienna and budapest for quite a while and that was one of bill's and nancy's first major tours with the choir they went on they were invited for a few summer festivals that were going on in both vienna and budapest and so we're not duplicating the you know is it when you think about some of the performance of the choirs tightly given i mean you think about the legacy the bill that the left behind and the foundation that he laid and you know such a great question because when i came into this experience  in two thousand and eight i was you know blessed with the work that he had done and passed on to charles son quist and then you know charles passed on to me and as you look at all of the repertoire that the choir has done and all of the places where they performed and all of the conductors they've worked with and all of the new music that they from yours or all of the students that they featured from our program who are now really thriving in the musical world it's incredibly impressive and you know we think about it all the time how how one person has such a huge impact on our community and has really changed the program forever and you know it's it's amazing how he had such a vision for working on the classics like classical music and taking it to the highest level but adding new music to that component and sarah and i really believe in that same thing we push on our kids don't force that we push it on them because you know they want to listen to their music but if we didn't dangle this little yummy in front of them and say hey we got to learn some great music of schubert we're going to the enter we're going to go to his house right right let's learn some of his great great works and feel what it's like to sing in german and get that under our belt and you know collaborate with another another choir from austria that's high school choir or a college choir and see what that's like and for us that's like a huge educational component to study the music from a particular part of the world and then go to that part and perform it with people who live there i mean that's it doesn't get any better than  that very special special feeling for that so when you think about the concert the special concert that's coming up once again said then the vendor seventieth's at the prince university chapel at seven thirty pm one of the things that you're thinking about you know what are you thinking about that you want to make this a special evening not just because it's commemorating bill but because you know just how much music meant to him and means to the princeton community it's a great question too i would say first celebrating his life and how he changed so many young lives and enabled them to feel super comfortable in an art form at the time that you know everybody maybe wanted to experiment and but but you know singing in choir let's make it a cool thing and that's what bill did bill and nancy got so many kids actively singing kids who are on all the sports teams you know and for me personally the fact that i have a number of boys from the football team and a number of boys from the soccer team right girls love to say boys love to sing too but is it always cool and our culture at princeton high school oh and  do that because everybody enjoys it and it's a it's a fun thing to do so that just celebrating that tradition in itself for me is a huge deal having all of the alum come back and sing with my current students in the program so that they get an opportunity to see all of these amazing people and there are dire adult lives how you know they if they continually use music as a part or as a vehicle to you  know enjoy life to the fullest so that experience will be also really interesting to just watch these ages come together but the fact that one person has really impacted this community is one must just take a moment and celebrate that and so in the repertoire of selections of which we've chosen i think will be a really good representation of the works that bill enjoyed singing in german some great latin song some him tunes these are all things that you know will be very exciting for them to to hear and for the audience to actually take part in as well you know so we welcome anybody even if they weren't a part of the choir program at princeton high school or princeton university they should really come out here this is this wonderful experience so hopefully they will are there he taught you mention about some of the specific choral pieces that will be perform d that evening are there any pieces that will be performing at least you'll be directing for the first time that's a good question two i would say i have i think myself and gabriel crouch from the university have conducted all of the pieces right but not with our various groups right you know so we've we've conducted them elsewhere or in other other with other ensembles but this will be the first time that the choir has sung  of the pieces by bach in a very long time so we're excited about that bill and nancy started this tradition of singing this chorale piece from the christmas oratory of johann sebastian bach and it's one of the if you to the winter concert it's one of the last things that the alum come up and sing with the current choir so of course we're going to do that but also this other great piece of bach's from his b minor mass and it's a wonderful way to conclude the program so that's how we'll end the concert ok and i know sarah can do with us today but i know she was she's very active yes you know with this about the new i also just want to take a moment to thank both gabriel crouch and stephanie two below who are the two conductors from the university they've helped us so much organize this event particular stephanie has created these web sites so that people can go on and register and if i can put a plug in for that if you want to register for this event it's w w w dot trigo memorial dot com t r e g right trigo memorial dot com and that will take you to an actual registration link but also gives you a little bit more info on bill trigo we have some recordings that are playing while you're looking through the website some photographs it's a great great website that she put together for us for this ok well we're a couple more questions sure let's think about the current crowe program right now and you know what do you looking at in the future i mean what's your vision for future and where do you see it going yeah so as you can imagine the community loves contemporary music right especially music of today so as we continue to look through our program we see a lot of diversity in our student body we see a lot of diversity in the music that we choose right so it's a combination of the traditional choral music that we have and that we love to offer our students for languages from the renaissance period from the baroque period classical period but also music of today so for us to bring in living composers who maybe would write or a range pieces for us down the road that is definitely something that we're wanting to spend more time on we started in two thousand and ten we started a gospel festival at p h s bringing various composers and conductors and arrangers to work with our kids which then we take to all of our elementary schools and our middle school and so it's a great celebration of black history month but also of spirituals and gospel music and the real true art of singing that kind of music which is very different from more traditional choral music that has been a part of our culture now for eight years which is so great you know when we're wanting to take that to the next level as well there are some great choral composers in our area in sort of the tri state area but also abroad and so with the travels that we have in these foreign countries to work with other composers and conductors from those areas are huge for us to take part in that and so as we continue to think about countries we haven't traveled to w might we go where choral music is really thriving where it sounds really different from our choral music right how might we we get in on that and just allow our kids to take part in that and the thoughts about some location usually eight days so if we were to do that with our current set up that would probably be four days of that would be travel so that would really leave us three and a half ish days into the thing in south africa extensive collaboration's with other schools there on a side note last february we had a visiting choir from south africa private girls school come over and collaborate with our kids  our freshman it was a life changing experience for our kids they stayed overnight they taught us some of their folk music some movement that went with it some percussion that they put to it it was the kids still talk about it today and i think for us to be able to go over to that culture and really explore and experiment with the music there i think would be an amazing opportunity it's just how to figure out how to do that myself as a musician and and take what i have the skills that i have and you know really promote them with the with the students in front of me and just you know figure out the path in which one would succeed in doing that and he was incredibly incredibly patient but also very demanding and i learned significant amount from him he also interesting enough just to tie this back to bill t knew bill really well and worked with bill and so to see this connection between princeton high school my alma mater westminster choir college you know it's it's pretty special for so there's such a great history within our community that's just unbelievable and most people i think most people know about all these great resources that we have in this community but sometimes you forget  be at seven thirty at the new prince university chapel and then some thank you very much effort run by and educating us about why it's going to be a great place to listen to the world famous chorus from both prince and high school in princeton university and it's not just about if you have a better thing to do that night if you do if if the only thing that you do this year is come to this concert i think you will be walking away with more than just being impressed you appreciate the strength of the music program not just a prince in high school or the university but just in the in our community as well and i'm sure it'll be a legacy that bill trigo will be mistrustful and about looking down and saying you know what i think they got it right that's right and it's a free so next week stay healthy stay focused and i'll see you next week on another edition of this week of education have a good night