After recording a song, the second period choir class is waiting to see if it will be able to publish it. The song, “Two Gazed in to A Pool” with the poem by Christina Rossetti, was written by choir director Douglas Council’s father.
“My father was a high school choir director for about 20 years,” Council said. “He worked most of his career at North Mesquite High School. He retired from teaching full time in 1995, but continued teaching Music Composition at Booker T. Washington, the Dallas Arts Magnet School.”
Council’s father has written many compositions before, but this is the first one to be recorded by the choir.
“It’s just our class [that got to record the song],” junior Melissa Meyer said. “Our class was chosen because Mr. Council wanted a challenging piece for our class period. We’re not the top choir, but there are so many incredibly talented singers, and performing a song like this helps our voices grow and makes us better performers.”
Although the choir has just recorded the song, they have been rehearsing it for many months. They were introduced to the song when Council asked his father if he had a song that the choir could perform at a UIL concert and a sight reading contest.
“We planned to sing it at UIL but felt the piece was not ready, so we sang a different a cappella piece,” Meyer said. “Then we planned to perform it at the spring concert, but it did not really fit with the rest of the show. We thought all of our work would to go to waste, but then we got the opportunity to record it, and in my opinion, it’s even cooler than performing it.”
The second period choir is now waiting to hear back from the publishers. The only song on the CD is their recording of “Two Gazed in to a Pool” and the publishers will decide whether or not they like the song.
“That’s what’s really cool about this whole thing: we’re the first and only choir to record this song,” Meyer said. “The publishers will hear our voices, and then they decide whether or not to publish the piece.”
Council enjoyed seeing his students get the opportunity to record a song with his father.
“The recording went very well,” Council said. “It was exciting to see him work on one of his pieces with my choir. I think the choir liked having a piece written for them and being able to record it to help get it published.”
For the second period choir, the process was both educational and exciting.
“We listen to CDs a lot in choir when we first start working on a song, just to get a feel for it,” Meyer said. “It’s really cool thinking that that could be us someday, that it could be our voices that students hear the first time they hear this song. It’s surreal. It’s an amazing song, and we all feel honored that our choir gets to record it.”
