By Betty Kaldas
Disclaimer: Betty Kaldas is a part of the FVHS choir.
On the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) campus, there are a variety of creative elective classes to choose. From mixed media in art, fixing your lens in photography or shaping a flower pot in ceramics, students have a multitude of options to pick from when creating their schedules. Among those options include perhaps one of the most physically demanding and talent-dependent classes out there: vocal music production.
With five class periods, FVHS choir has over 100 people participating in its program as of the 25-26 school year. Having first begun in the 2000s, the choir quickly developed into one of the campus’ most impressive programs. Having won over 90 awards across America and other continents, the choir program became renowned within the district.
Kevin Tison, the head of the choir program, first began teaching music at FVHS in 2005. He originally had no interest in conducting or teaching music at all, but due to encouragement from his advisor in college, he decided to give teaching a try.
“I was kind of spread across many different areas of music as an undergraduate, and I was good in a lot of those different areas,” Tison said. “My advisor strongly encouraged me to take education classes, and I said no thanks, I’d rather be a performer. I don’t want to teach.”
After beginning his musical career teaching a struggling choir at Laguna Hills High School, Tison helped them to begin a booster program and recruit more singers into the group. After just two years of leading the two choir classes the school had, Tison took his growing choir to Hawaii for a music festival and won gold.
Now, FVHS’ school choir director and head of the program for over 20 years, Tison continues to lead the choirs to new heights every year. Not only does he ensure the choir’s participation in singing competitions across the country, but he also makes an effort to connect with them on a deeper level in the classroom and on the stage.
Despite their success and talent, the FVHS choir has had a critical problem ever since the pandemic. With every school year, the percentage of male participants has steadily decreased over the years. This has not affected their performance or collective voice during concerts and other events, but creates a stressful environment at the end of every year as everybody encourages people, specifically boys, to audition and join.
“A lot of choir programs have not rebounded at all,” Tison said. “Some of them have completely disappeared after COVID. We have stayed strong, but we’ve struggled a bit in recruiting and pulling in some of our boys.”
Members in choir are always encouraged to advertise the choir program and get people to join due to lower numbers after COVID.
In order to maximize a choir’s full potential and performance on stage, it is necessary to have a good mix of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses; otherwise the range becomes off and the voices don’t blend well. In other words, the choir must be split around 50/50 between boys or girls. This is especially difficult in the FVHS choir as numbers of male members decrease with each passing year.
“Musically, you need to have a solid foundation of frequencies and harmonies [in order to] be able to construct and build the types of sounds that you can’t do with an all-girls choir,” Tison says. “It’s a whole different level of musicianship and repertoire that you can explore when you have a really solid tenor and bass section.”
To keep the FVHS choir thriving, choir members and students alike need to recognize the importance of participation in school programs. What makes getting students to participate difficult is that some programs on campus are looked down upon or found to be “lame.”
“I think the big roadblock is that guys just don’t think it’s cool. And in my head, I’m thinking, are you telling me Michael Buble, Josh Groban, Bruno Mars, Adam Levine… are these guys not cool?” Tison said. “I think also people have a hesitancy, and I think students feel like they’re going to be exposed or embarrassed, or they’re going to feel like they don’t have the skills or the qualifications. But that’s why you take the class. You [take the class to] learn, discover and unlock your voice and potential.”
To continue to uplift and enhance our communities on campus, students need to continue to support and participate in programs like choir. Without them, we wouldn’t be who we are as a high school.
“You don’t take French class if you already know the language. You take it to learn,” Tison said. “So you take choir, and you take music so you can learn how to sing and develop your voice. I wish more people would give that a chance.”
