Hello SGC families-
I want to start this email off by saying thank you so much for all your diligence and support in our return to rehearsals over the past months. Our families have been keeping students home when they are sick, or when there is a potential health concern, and we have seen success in keeping students masked and following protocols. We’d just love to encourage everyone to keep this up as we get closer and closer to concert time.
With that in mind, we have three important topics to cover in this bulletin: 1) Holiday travel, 2) Vaccinations for young choristers, and 3) Concert ticketing information and safety measures. Please read on for details.
Holiday Travel
Regular rehearsals are scheduled for Monday 11/22 and Tuesday 11/23. No rehearsals on the 24th and 25th.
With the upcoming holidays we know that families may be travelling or having larger gatherings, and we wanted to encourage everyone to follow CDC guidance in these situations. This post from Your Local Epidemiologist also lays out some considerations and recommendations you may find useful. The last thing we want is to get close to concert time and have a concerning situation arise. When we come back from the holiday break, if you are in doubt about whether your chorister should come to rehearsal in person or not due to symptoms or potential exposures please opt to keep your chorister home and have them join a rehearsal via Zoom. Thank you so much!
Vaccinations
As you know, we already require that all choristers 12 and over be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to participate in our programs. With the new authorization for 5-11 year olds, we want to encourage all families of our young choristers to start their vaccination process as soon as possible. We anticipate that we will make full vaccination a requirement for all choristers in early 2022. We will let you know when that policy goes into effect. When your chorister has completed their vaccine series, please upload their vaccine information here, so we can have it on file.
Concert Information
There have been a lot of details to work out this year for our concerts- we had to find new ticketing system options, negotiate with venues, and ensure we had processes in place to adhere to local ordinances around vaccination and testing for audiences attending performing arts events. Thank you for your patience as we’ve worked through those issues! I’m happy to say now that tickets are available to purchase this weekend. You can find links on the event pages of each concert via our website or using the links below:
- Lessons and Carols (Allegra, December 5th) Limited seating, buy soon!
- Gift of Song (All Choirs, December 18th) Limited in-person and virtual tickets available starting November 20th.
- Please invite friends and extended family to join the concert via our livestream as in-person seating will be limited. They can order from the link above or directly from our Crowdcast page.
- Carmina Angelorum (Prime Voci, December 17th and December 20th)
Proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the event is required of all attendees 12 and over for all our concerts. For Gift of Song, a negative test for children under 12 is also required. This is a policy of our venue, Town Hall.
Again, I want to thank you all so much for your cooperation and understanding as we traverse through this new territory. We appreciate the effort that each of you makes to keep choir going.
-Meaghan Leferink
Executive Director