News & Views Wednesday, September 28, 2016

recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral and Classroom Music Specialist

Looking for a fun and educational way to introduce the history of music notation? Enter Guido d’Arezzo! This interactive storybook provides a creative and engaging look at the development of music notation as we know it – the concepts are easy enough for upper elementary students to grasp, and the presentation is clever enough to engage even a high school music theory class!

The Tale of Guido d’Arezzo by Maritza Sadowsky
Long before the lines and spaces, the flags and beams, music had to be memorized because there was no way to write it down. That is, until clever Guido came along! Learn how this Medieval monk laid the groundwork for the system of music notation that we use today. This true story is told with beautiful illustrations and age-appropriate vocabulary, which can be read from the screen or heard by clicking the listen icon. Embedded audio plays period music, whimsical sound effects, and a professionally-voiced narration. As you scroll through each interactive page, be sure to click highlighted elements to watch the story come to life. Utilizes flash technology that works on individual computers and interactive whiteboards. Recommended for all ages.

About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.

recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral and Classroom Music Specialist

Teaching dictation in the ensemble classroom can feel like a drag – do I have time for this?!? I’m already teaching sight-reading – isn’t that good enough?!? You DO have time (or you can MAKE the time), and it IS important! Here’s a great resource to help:

Hear It, Read It, Write It! by Dave & Jean Perry
Learning to read music is much like learning a language. There are three basic elements: listening, reading, and writing. This well organized book provides step-by-step sequential lessons for developing these skills. Rhythm, note, and interval concepts are taught in the following way: first, hear and echo a short musical example; second, read and perform a notated exercise; and third, notate musical phrases as demonstrated on the CD. Worksheet-style student pages are included as reproducible PDFs. Ten-minute activities for teaching or assessment, recommended for fourth through ninth grade ensembles or music classes.

About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.

At Stanton’s, we know you have many choices when it comes to purchasing sheet music. Over the next few weeks, we want to take the opportunity to highlight just a few of the many reasons why Stanton’s is the best place to buy music for your school, church, private studio or personal use!

Stanton’s is one of the largest sheet music retailers in the country, with tens of thousands of titles in stock. We understand that many of our customers can’t make it to our Columbus, Ohio location to peruse music, so we offer a 21 Day Trial service.

How It Works: Music can be secured with either a Stanton’s account or a credit card. We send you the in-stock materials you request, and you pay nothing but the shipping and handling costs. As long as the music is returned to us in NEW condition within 21 days, you are never charged. If you have specific titles you’d like to see, we will happily send those to you, or you can ask one of our knowledgeable staff members to select pieces for you based on concert theme, performance venue, type of group, etc.

What You Can Take On Trial (by department):

Choral, Handbell, Classroom General Music & Solo Vocal: You may take up to 20 single copies of octavos and/or up to 5 musicals, collections, or director’s scores.

Band, Orchestra and Instrumental: You may take up to six items on trial, including full arrangements, solos and chamber ensembles (only scores will be sent for titles appearing on the OMEA High School Large Group Contest List).

Piano/Keyboard: Up to five collections and/or 10 teaching pieces, one copy each. Popular sheet music is not available for 21 Day Trial. 75% (by dollar amount) of the piano music on trial must be purchased.

For more details about our 21 Day Trial, visit us online at www.stantons.com, or give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC!

Click here for more information on the STANTON’S DIFFERENCE!

respectfully offered by Dan C., Orchestra Music Specialist

If you are reading this, you are probably a musician or associate with musicians. When you are a musician or hang with musicians, you begin to think that everyone is probably involved in music in one way or another. But, we musicians are really a fairly finite group of people.

It has been speculated that if you were to gather all people in the United States who make their living in the music industry (whether creating it, performing it, recording it, writing it, teaching it, publishing it, selling it, making and repairing instruments that play it etc), you would end up with about the same amount of people as are employed by the Kellogg’s Company – you know, the cereal and snack food folks. Yeah – a pretty finite group!

It seems unlikely that anyone involved in this tight-knit music community would intentionally keep their fellow musicians from trying to make a living. And yet, that’s what you do when you copy sheet music without permission. Sheet music is property – like a trumpet, violin or a microphone – but it’s intellectual property, which can be a bit nebulous. Basically, only the Copyright Holder has the “right” to “copy” their work. When you copy music without permission from the copyright holder, you are actually stealing it.

When you copy music without a second thought, that means the music is not being sold. Consequently, the music retailer and all their employees lose income, the music publisher and all their employees lose income, and, perhaps most tragically, the composer loses income. Your fellow musicians are being deprived of their ability to make a living.

So not only are you breaking the law by copying music, you are keeping your brothers and sisters in this finite musical community from doing what they love to do: be a musician. If they can’t make a living at it, they may have to leave and do something else. And the musical world becomes an even smaller place.

So don’t copy music without permission – it’s not only illegal, it’s immoral. Let’s make sure the livelihood of our music community is secure so we can all continue to make music – that thing we love to do!

For more information on what you can and cannot do when it comes to copyright, check out these books on the subject:
Copyright Basics by Joel Leach
The Teacher’s Guide to Music, Media, and Copyright Law by James Frankel
Music Copyright Law by Moser & Slay
Music Publishing: The Complete Guide by Steve Winogradsky

About the Author:
Dan C. has worked at Stanton’s since 1979, primarily with orchestra music and print promotions. A “working” musician, he’s a classical cellist, a rock & jazz bassist and a folk & country guitarist/singer. His free time is spent with family or reading, gardening, cycling and working puzzles. His series of musical puzzles (RP3 Rebus Puzzle Picture People) can be found on the Stanton’s Facebook page each Sunday. He also has a reputation as a pretty good joke teller. Seriously.

The amazing staff at Stanton’s knows how valuable your time is. That’s why we try to provide you with as many tools as we can to make choosing music easier,  faster and more enjoyable. In this series of blog posts, we will be profiling our E-tools. Whether you are a local customer here in Columbus, OH or one of our many friends around the world, we hope you will find a way to use our E-tools!

As an extension of our Listening Library, we are proud to offer Stanton’s Jukebox. Stanton’s Jukebox is a specialized “wish list” where you can add sound samples from our Listening Library, then use it to:

• Research your music purchases by building a playlist for all the titles you are considering, and then easily compare “apples to apples” as you listen.
• Arrange your concert program by listening to full-length pieces in order, then rearranging as needed to allow for a variety in tempi and styles.
• Build specific playlists for each of your different ensembles to assist you with your rehearsal planning and score study.
• Generate a personalized URL for each playlist that can be emailed to your ensemble to enhance at-home practice – you can even add custom practice/rehearsal notes to appear with each playlist.
• Forward your playlist to your school administrator or Booster/PTA president when you need to solicit funding for specific music.
• Design separate playlists for different genres or eras of music for your Music History or Music Appreciation students to use during class or with homework.
• Create a list of your favorite works for your personal listening pleasure in your home or office, and let it inspire you to continue strengthening your ensembles!

If you have questions about how to use the Stanton’s Jukebox feature, we also have a quick video tutorial that you can watch, as well as a list of “Frequently Asked Questions.” As always, if you need further information, feel free to call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC or email us at greatservice@stantons.com.

Click here for more in the Stanton’s E-Tools series!

John Jacobson’s MUSIC EXPRESS is the classroom magazine for young musicians in grades K-6. We’re excited to announce that annual subscriptions are now available through Stanton’s Sheet Music!

Says John, “MUSIC EXPRESS is the magazine designed to help you, the everyday hero, as you share music with young people in your classrooms. It will bring you fresh ideas from some of the best music educators in the country in a format that’s easy to use and fun!”

In your yearly subscription, you’ll get 6 issues with:

• digital interactive lessons to use with your classroom technology
• 90+ songs for classroom and concert
• over 180 professional recordings
• step-by-step lesson plans correlated to the National Core Music Standards
• 36+ choreography videos by John Jacobson
• 6 video lessons by John Jacobson
• 6 NEW episodes of The Music Show
• 6 interactive listening lessons with recordings
• 5 artist spotlights or video walkthroughs
• 3 complete concert programs
• songs and lessons Orff, recorder, and classroom percussion instruments
• movement songs, assessment songs, and concept teaching songs
• creative writing activities, movement activities, extension activities
• 6 motivational articles by John Jacobson
• clearly-stated lesson objectives, assessments, worksheets, vocabulary words, tech tips, material lists
• AND MORE…all delivered to your school 6 times a year!

New for this year, all subscribers will receive improved and expanded digital content, and can also receive printed student editions on request. With both Premium and Premium Plus subscription options, we know you’ll find the right choice for your classroom. Contact Stanton’s now to subscribe!

The amazing staff at Stanton’s knows how valuable your time is. That’s why we try to provide you with as many tools as we can to make choosing music easier, faster and more enjoyable.  In this series of blog posts, we will be profiling our E-tools. Whether you are a local customer here in Columbus, OH or one of our many friends around the world, we hope you will find a way to use our E-tools!

What is the Listening Library?

When you are searching for new music that fits your group, sometimes looking at or even playing through a score is not enough. Music is meant to be heard, not just seen. That is why we have recordings of almost 70,000 titles available in the Stanton’s Listening Library. The Library files are in an easy-to-use MP3 format and are created from “promotional recordings” produced by the publishers. Whenever possible, Stanton’s uses the full-length recording, but due to the fact that some tracks were only made available as “publisher promotional copies” some of the tracks may be excerpted. We are constantly adding to our library, so check back often for updates!

How do I know if Stanton’s has a recording of the piece I’m looking for?

When browsing or searching our website, you will see the “globe with headphones” icon (pictured above) next to any item that has a recording available. Clicking on that icon will take you to a recording of that piece. Having trouble hearing? Check to make sure that your speakers are turned up and not set to mute, or that your headphones are plugged in.

Can I access the Listening Library from my smart phone or tablet?

Absolutely! The Stanton’s mobile website is compatible with all tablets and smart phones. Just touch that “globe with headphones” icon to get started. If you download the Stanton’s Barcode Scanner App, you can even use the tablet or phone’s camera to scan the bar code on a piece of music, and you will be immediately directed to that item’s recording. It makes shopping for music (or browsing your own music library) a breeze!

For questions about how to use our Listening Library, please feel free to give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC or visit us online or in person!

Click here for more in the Stanton’s E-Tools series!

At Stanton’s, we know you have many choices when it comes to purchasing sheet music. That’s why we want to take the opportunity to highlight just a few of the many reasons why Stanton’s is the best place to buy music for your school, church, private studio or personal use!

Did you know that Stanton’s offers a 10% discount on most printed sheet music products to teachers, church musicians and college music majors? You can use your discount when shopping online, over the phone, or in the store. Your discount is automatically applied when you use your church or school account, or just mention that you are a teacher when you call to place an order!

10% doesn’t sound like very much? Think of it this way: For choral directors, it’s the same as buying 9 copies of an octavo and getting the 10th copy FREE! Or let’s say that you’re an instrumental teacher with 3 ensembles. If you buy 3 pieces for each group over the course of the year, that “fun” pop number for the spring concert is like a freebie! And who doesn’t love FREE?

For more information about the educational discount, visit us online at www.stantons.com, or give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC!

Click here for more information on the STANTON’S DIFFERENCE!

At Stanton’s, we know you have many choices when it comes to purchasing sheet music. Over the next few weeks, we want to take the opportunity to highlight just a few of the many reasons why Stanton’s is the best place to buy music for your school, church, private studio or personal use!

If you’re a school, church or community music director, your purchases are usually made to an account to be paid by your institution. If you are new to any of these positions, or have recently changed gigs, give us a call! We will be happy to provide you with your organization’s account number(s), and walk you through the billing process.

Are you new to shopping with Stanton’s? Rest easy – our staff can check to see if your organization already has an account (many often do), and if not, setting up a new account is easy! In fact, we can help you set up a new account when you place your first order, or make your first purchase, in a matter of minutes!

What we need:
– Name of the organization to be billed
– Billing address
– Billing phone number
– Purchase order number (if required by billing institution)

Let us know where you would like to have your order shipped, and you’re done!

Some notes:
*Stanton’s can bill your: School Board/District; Church; School Building Activity Fund; Booster organization; Community Band/Choir organization

*We can assign multiple ship-to addresses and institutional credit cards to your account.

*You can bill orders to your account at our store, over the phone, at stantons.com, or at any conference or reading session where we’re exhibiting!

If you have any questions, give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC and speak with our sales staff, or press 4 to speak directly with our accounting department, and shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Click here for more information on the STANTON’S DIFFERENCE!

recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral and Classroom Music Specialist

Found Soundology by Mark Shelton
Take your students on an unforgettable musical journey with this collection of twelve original compositions using everyday objects in place of traditional instruments – tin cans! tables! plastic buckets! paper and pencils! While each piece includes suggestions for found sounds, Mark Shelton encourages you and your classes to find your own sound sources. Teaching and performance tips, recordings, and reproducible parts round out this convenient, creative outlet. Perfect for middle school general music!

About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.

Too often, urban music education is seen as “less than” its suburban counterpart. In Urban Music Education: A Practical Guide for Teachers, author Kate Fitzpatrick-Harnish offers an important corrective that encourages music teachers to focus on students’ strengths as their primary resource. Through a combination of research-based strategies and practical suggestions, she highlights such issues as culturally relevant pedagogy, the “opportunity gap,” race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, musical content, curricular change, program development, student motivation, and finding inspiration and support. Written for a wide variety of school and community settings, the book challenges all teachers who work in underresourced settings to tailor their pedagogy to meet students’ needs.

Author Kate Fitzpatrick-Harnish is Associate Professor of Music Education at the University of Michigan. An avid supporter of public school music programs, she is the former director of instrumental music at Northland High School in Columbus, Ohio.

recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral and Classroom Music Specialist

Haja: The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly by Julia Jordan Kamanda
West Africa’s vibrant colors and sounds come alive in this interactive musical storybook depicting the touching tale of a small bird who must face her biggest fear. 4 to 7 year olds will love adding the sounds of Haja’s heartbeat, wind and the rain on the mango leaves. A companion CD includes a djembe drum jam track, an audiobook of the story, and the instant classic song “Fly Haja Fly,” performed by author Julia Jordan Kamanda and students from J3Music Studios. A singer/songwriter, teaching artist, and ‘mom on a music mission,’ Julia helps your students explore Haja’s world and learn more about the musical element of rhythm.

About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.

recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral and Classroom Music Specialist

Music teacher D. Brian Weese teaches elementary music in Walton County GA, and also enjoys working in church music with children’s choirs, adult choirs, and instrumental groups. Brian completed his undergraduate degree in music education at Grand Canyon University, and holds a master’s degree in church music from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Brian’s series of music games from Heritage Music Press are perfect for the elementary classroom music teacher (or sub tub!). They cover a wide range of music concepts, including rhythms, music symbols, note spelling, recorder fingerings, and solfege. And, they’re not easy! – great for assessment of skill development at different grade levels.

Color by Music
This colorful collection of reproducible worksheets will keep students engaged as the images come alive on the page. Covering a wide range of music concepts, including rhythms, music symbols, note spelling, recorder fingerings, and solfege, and featuring easier and more difficult versions of each puzzle, teachers and substitutes will value this versatile resource.

Mysterious Mazes
Feeling lost when it comes to reinforcing music concepts? Let your students navigate these entertaining and challenging reproducible puzzles to strengthen their knowledge! Students will be on task as they wind their way through composer timelines, twist and turn along the route to rhythm skills, blaze a trail through instrument families, and much more! It’s simply a-maze-ing!

Music FUNdamentals
You and your students will enjoy working your way through these forty-four fabulous, fundamentally sound, leveled, REPRODUCIBLE worksheets that reinforce melodic and rhythmic concepts. This jam-packed resource includes at least three different-leveled versions for every game, making it perfect for the music teacher or music substitute. Also available in a second volume – MORE Music FUNdamentals.

Perplexing Puzzles
Sssh, can you hear their musical minds turning? “Perplexing Puzzles” will keep your students quietly engaged while reinforcing musical concepts and terms. This book of twenty-six REPRODUCIBLE puzzles is leveled and includes worksheets for students in the second through sixth grades. With easy-to-follow directions, you can use these puzzles as part of your own instruction or leave them for a substitute with little musical background.

Mix and Match Music
Who says that sight reading has to be dull? This innovative resource encourages students to mix and match phrases from familiar tunes to create wacky new songs. Engaging graphics and animation with three levels of play will keep your beginning and intermediate players tuned in to reading music.

Nothing But Notespellers
These seventeen reproducible games are definitely notespellers, but there’s nothing ordinary about them. Your younger students will enjoy the mazes and color-by-pitch worksheets, and you can challenge your upper elementary students to name ledger-line and bass-clef notes and match pitches displaced across an octave. And with content ranging from profiles of famous composers to aural-skills development, the learning opportunities extend far beyond the staff. Thanks to Brian and his inventive take on the traditional notespeller, you’ll have nothing but super spellers and (should you choose) satisfied subs.

For more quality resources for your music classroom, visit our website or contact us!

About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.

recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral and Classroom Music Specialist

Have your students met Freddie the Frog? Freddie (and his musical friends!) was developed by master educator Sharon Burch to introduce fundamental music concepts to preschool and elementary children. Starting with his travels on Treble Clef Island (Freddie the Frog and the Thump in the Night), you can continue exploring and learning with Freddie as he meets the Bass Clef Monster and the Mysterious Wahooooo, and learns the blues on Crater Island and plays jazz with the Flying Jazz Kitten!

Don’t miss Freddie’s newest adventure…

Freddie the Frog and The Invisible Coqui
Freddie the Frog and Eli the Elephant are led by an unseen guide to the secret world of the invisible coqui. The coqui speak Spanish and love to play salsa music and dance through the night. Help Freddie and Eli learn the Latin rhythms to discover the identity of their mysterious hosts! Audio CD includes a read-along dramatization, a sing-along song, and play-along Latin rhythm tracks. Kid-friendly salsa dance steps are located at the end of the story. Suggested for Grades K-3.

For more quality resources for your elementary music classroom, please contact us!

About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.

recommended by Ben H., Jazz Music Specialist

The Stanton’s crew has just finished an exhausting season of music conventions from New York to Chicago and points in between. Although we’ve sold loads of great new jazz music and books, a jazz education standout has been the latest entry in the popular Teaching Music Through Performance Series. Released in time for the December 2015 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic on Chicago, Teaching Music Through Performance in Jazz for Beginning Ensembles, is bound to become a staple on the shelves of music educators and college jazz methods classes. It serves as a veritable “how-to” for newbie teachers and seasoned professionals. The book is chock-full of tips and information from prominent jazz educators as well as analyzation of over sixty charts at the grade 1 – grade 3.5 level that are currently in print!

Read on for a description of this fantastic new jazz publication from GIA Publications.

“Teaching Music through Performance in Jazz for Beginning Ensembles”
Editor : Richard Miles
© 2016 GIA

Contributors: Ronald Carter, Roosevelt Griffin, Ben Huntoon, Brian Logan, Rob Parton, Willis Rapp, and Dean Sorenson

With this volume, the celebrated Teaching Music through Performance series is available for the first time for leaders of beginning jazz ensembles. This edition pairs practical perspectives from world-class jazz educators and performers— who specialize in working with beginning ensembles—together with Teacher Resource Guides for more than 60 of the best jazz charts published for beginning ensembles.

Part II: Conductor as Teacher focuses on the best jazz repertoire published today for beginning ensembles and provides a Teacher Resource Guide for each work. Each Teacher Resource Guide includes background information on both the composer and the history of each chart, technical and stylistic considerations, a discussion of musical elements of the work, and measure-by- measure rehearsal tips for the best jazz repertoire tailored for beginning ensembles. The repertoire covers Grade 1 through Grade 3.5.

This book is a truly significant resource for both beginning jazz educators and their students, and an invaluable contribution to the field.

For a complete listing of works covered in this volume, visit http://www.TeachingMusic.org.

Chapter 1: Recruitment and Rehearsal Strategies for the Beginning Jazz Ensemble; Chapter 2: Scheduling Options for the Beginning Jazz Ensemble; Chapter 3: Beginning Jazz Ensemble Instrumentation; Chapter 4: Basiz Jazz Articulations for Beginning Jazz Band; Chapter 5: Beginning Jazz Improvisation; Chapter 6: Selected Resources”

Stanton’s Sheet Music is proud that our own “Jazz Guy,” Ben Huntoon was a writer for this volume and chaired the committee selecting the charts to be included.

Buy your copy today!!!

About the Author:
Ben Huntoon is the Jazz Education Consultant at Stanton’s Sheet Music. He received bachelors and masters degrees in music from Capital University and The Ohio State University respectively. As a professional trumpeter, Ben is accomplished in a wide variety of genres and has performed throughout the Midwest on many stages over the past 30 years. He also teaches trumpet, coaches brass ensembles and serves on the jazz faculty at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio.

recommended by Rachel Steele and Jen Sper, School Choral Specialists

When we think of Edgar Allan Poe, poems like “The Raven” and stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart” come to mind. Sometimes we forget that this American master wrote not only of the supernatural, but more traditional subjects as well. Here are two new chorals that we love with completely different moods by this master of the macabre!

Evening Star by Victor C. Johnson

Poe’s ode to the beauty of the moon is the complete opposite of what we expect from a Poe text. “O evening star, gently glowing star, fill our souls with peace tonight. Play for us the gentle strains of your symphony of light.” This beautiful piece is precisely what we love to see from Victor Johnson: a beautiful masterwork text, a soaring melody, interesting (but not difficult) harmonies and a well-crafted piano part make this a perfect piece for your fall/holiday program or concert/festival performances later in the year. Available in SATB, Three-Part Mixed, and SSA.

The Lake by Jay Althouse

This piece, on the other hand, will make sure you never enjoy a vacation by the water again! “My infant spirit would awake; To the terror of the lone lake.” Dissonant harmonies and staccato singing make this a fun challenge for your group. The slower middle section is packed with fermate and caesurae, making it a wonderful opportunity for less experienced groups to work on expression and interpretation of conducting gestures. Available in SATB.

Extension activities abound when you program both of these pieces on the same concert. Consider slide shows or artwork with each piece, or partner with your language arts department for an entire Poe week right around Halloween. The possibilities are endless!

For more recommendations give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC ext. 1 or check out the “Favorite Texts/Poets” section of our Listening Lab.

About the Authors:

Rachel Steele has been at Stanton’s since 2013. She previously taught middle school and high school band and choir for 13 years, and holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in music education from The Ohio State University. Currently a member of the Heisey Wind Ensemble and a musician at Epiphany Lutheran Church (Pickerington OH), Rachel also enjoys reading, sewing, baking and the Pittsburgh Steelers!

A former middle school and high school choral director, Jen Sper holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.