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Musicianship Training: Why is it Important?

Dear BYC Community,  

September marks the beginning of BYC's online teaching, which consists of two workshops - Music Beyond and Musicianship Training. Musicianship Training will be the perfect way for third graders and up to continue their music education with BYC! Students will be divided into groups based on their age and skill level, and musicianship skills such as solfège, takadimi rhythms, scales, modes, and sight-reading will provide the foundation for more confident music-making.

Musicianship will be taught by BYC Artistic Director Nicholas Gorne and assisted by Administrator and Accompanist Nathan Shiu. The two of them are spending August working on curriculum together and can't wait to get started! 

You can view a video message from Nicholas and Nathan here, and can read their bios below.

Sign your singer up for Musicianship Training using the button below. Your help in signing up soon is appreciated so that we can prepare for your students!

SIGN UP FOR MUSICIANSHIP TRAINING

Musicianship Training
Led by Nicholas Gorne
Assisted by Nathan Shiu

Mondays at 4:45PM
Begins September 14, 2020
 
Nicholas Gorne has taught music in every grade from Kindergarten to 12th.  He fell in love with music at age eight when he began taking piano lessons and singing in choir at school.  Throughout elementary school, junior high school, and high school, Mr.  Gorne was involved in choir, jazz choir, musical theatre, and solo vocal performance in the Mukilteo School District.
Mr. Gorne entered Pacific Lutheran University in 1998 where, over four years, he developed his solo vocal performance skills performing in opera and musical theatre, sang in the Choir of the West, touring throughout the northwest and Europe, sang in a madrigal group on campus, and graduated in 2002 from Pacific Lutheran University with a Bachelor of Arts in Music.  While at PLU Mr. Gorne was recruited during his junior year to begin singing with Choral Arts Northwest (CANW) in 2001.  As a tenor in CANW, Mr. Gorne has been part of five recordings and has sung for regional and national American Choral Directors Association Conferences.  In December 2015, CANW had a command performance at the White House for the President and First Lady.

In 2007, he decided to pursue a Masters Degree and teaching certificate from the University of Puget Sound, graduating in 2008 with a Master of Arts in Teaching.  He received his Kodály Levels certification at Seattle Pacific University in 2019 and is an active adjudicator for choral festivals in the region. Mr. Gorne was a mentor and conductor with the Vivace! Choral Program from 2011-2018, and joined BYC as Artistic Director in 2019.

 

Nathan Shiu

Beginning piano lessons around age seven, Nathan has continued playing piano to this day. Working as a student accompanist during his years of undergraduate study at Whitman College in Walla Walla introduced him to the pleasure of playing as a collaborative pianist. After graduating with a B.A. in Music Composition he pursued this passion of accompanying for eight years, serving as Staff Accompanist for Whitman College's Music Department.

He also served as rehearsal and performance pianist for several productions of opera workshop which included such works as "The Little Sweep" by Benjamin Britten, and "Suor Angelica" and "Gianni Schicchi" by Giacomo Puccini.

Nathan also had the great opportunity to collaborate as pianist on several student productions including a full semi-staged production of "The Last Five Years" by Jason Robert Brown. Such collaborations has also afforded him some experience playing the harpsichord for presentations of "La Serva Padrona" by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and "Dido and Aeneas" by Henry Purcell. In conjunction with Whitman College's Harper Joy Theatre, Nathan has served as rehearsal pianist and performance pianist in the pit orchestra of their production of "She Loves Me" by Jerry Bock, Joe Masteroff, and Sheldon Harnick.

In May of 2015, Nathan finally earned his Master's degree in Music. During his graduate studies, he focused his time on Vocal Pedagogy. When not playing piano for Bellevue Youth Choirs, he can be seen singing, conducting, and playing piano around the Greater Seattle Area.

 
In addition to Musicianship Training, BYC will also offer Music Beyond, focusing on a series of musical topics "beyond" the choir classroom, starting with Musical Theatre. Learn from our guest experts, Michael Bennett and Garrick Vaughan, beginning with where musical theatre came from and culminating with how you can be involved in today’s musical theatre.
Learn more about our online offerings here.

Sign up for the September class of Music Beyond below.
 

SIGN UP FOR MUSIC BEYOND: MUSICAL THEATRE