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Deana W. Saunders
Choral Director
Madison Middle School
4630 Madison Ave.
Trumbull, CT 06611
203.452.4499

Choral Director, Soloist, Private Vocal Instructor

Ms. Saunders has a love of singing that has only grown since childhood. 
Deeply involved in choruses and private voice, as well as musical theatre, 
she continued her studies into college where she studied Classical Voice and 
Music Education at Western CT State University and then Choral Conducting at 
the University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music.

Embracing all that a career in music has to offer, Ms. Saunders has directed 
musical theatre productions, directed children’s choirs in public school 
settings as well as at churches. She has served as a church cantor on a 
consistent basis for over 14 years, currently serves at Our Lady of 
Assumption in Woodbridge, CT while continuing to sing for special masses and 
wedding ceremonies throughout the state.

Starting in 2001, she has held the position of director of the Oronoque 
Village Voices, a community choir made up of 65 members of residents of 
Oronoque Village in Stratford, CT. The group

Since 1998, Ms. Saunders has been the director of choral music at 
Madison Middle School in Trumbull, CT. During her time there the program has 
grown into a viable music offering for the students, while serving as an 
anticipated concert experience for the community. Her research and 
implementation of a gender based program for young adolescent changing 
voices has aided in the success of the program and the comfort level of the 
students. Her choirs at the school now number 6, totaling 400 students, 
including the grade 6, 7, and 8th grade mixed Choruses, the 7th and 8th 
grade Treble Choirs and the 7th and 8th grade Boyschoir, of which she is 
most 
proud. While some middle schools in the state are having difficulty 
recruiting boys, Ms. Saunders’ Boyschoir numbers over 100.

Since 1999 Ms. Saunders has also served in state music association positions 
including Repertoire and Standards Chair for MS/Jr.H. Choirs for the CT 
chapter or the American Choral Director’s Association and for the past 5 
years, the Western Region Music Festival Chorus Chair for the CT Music 
Educators Association. On the high school level, Ms. Saunders has also been 
a CMEA ALL-State Adjudicator for Voice since 1995.

A strong dedication to community service, Ms. Saunders also leads her student 
groups to choose a project each year. Recently, her groups have raised money 
for the CT Food Bank and Project Read.

Deana W. Saunders
Personal Statement
<itlacs>written January 2006</italics>

I have chosen to teach my curriculum to prepare students for 
further study while also teaching those who may find themselves in their 
last 
music education experience. My goal is to teach those who sit before me 
concepts and appreciation of music, making them more well rounded citizens. 
I 
choose to teach with the hope that whether they continue to study choral 
music in school formally, at their place of worship, as a hobby, or decide 
to 
pursue something else entirely, that music will enrich their lives in a 
different way having studied in my classroom. Teaching choral music in 
middle 
school is not always about perfecting the notes on the page, often it is 
about the process of attempting, the challenge of trying, the unified vision 
of a group. And most often, the constant that remains, is the connection 
that 
music creates between people. 
            I have the privilege to be allowed to meet my student’s needs 
through my training, the support of my administration and the efforts of 
those who have been inspiring to me. I have taken portions of each teacher 
who has touched my life, teachers of all kinds whose classroom are not 
necessarily in a school building, and molded my style, personality, skills 
and technique to develop an environment that opens the very personal world 
of 
self-created vocal music to others. I am so grateful that my love of music 
translates into a joyful classroom where inhibitions are left in the hall. 
That my ability to pace a rehearsal means that the hours of work pass 
without 
feeling as if it were a painful process, and I am most grateful that in 
doing 
this work, I help to bring to life the connections made through music for 
both students and community. Together we have felt the emotion of the civil 
war through an interdisciplinary unit with Social Studies and Language Arts, 
expressed love and pride in our country through a Gershwin Review and began 
to understand the world outside the U.S. with our studies of cultural 
selections in foreign languages.  In countless other opportunities have I 
seen their eyes light up with new knowledge and feelings and pride.  These 
moments of connection are what make this profession so very rewarding. 
            I have the benefit of not only teaching the young students in 
the 
middle school, but also the “young at heart” of the Oronoque Village Voices, 
a choir of 65 residents in a retirement community in Stratford, CT. I have 
challenged this group to learn some new tricks and increase the quality of 
their repertoire. In doing so, they have mastered many skills and are 
performing two concerts a year to sold out audiences, not to mention being 
extremely proud of themselves. 
            The spring and winter concerts of my school and community chorus 
coincide and in an effort to create and promote the strong connections that 
music can develop, I often teach both groups a song separately and then 
perform it together for my school concert. As the older choir members are 
invited to the risers to join the students, they just beam. The students 
welcome them with handshakes and hugs. The audience is warmed to see the 
generations come together. And as they join in song, the beautiful sound 
becomes a lasting memory for all. Seeing twelve-year-old boys and 70ish year 
old men singing In the Still of the Night with motions is quite a sight. Our 
song this winter was a moving and emotional song to which there was not a 
dry 
eye in the room. I adore my students, young and old, and to see them grow in 
love and respect for each other while making music is a realization of a 
dream for me. 
            With the field of vocal music so varied and a love of it so 
strong, my days are filled with singing. Private lessons, community choir, 
church choir, school choruses, summer programs, church cantoring, weddings, 
caroling for the elderly; the list is endless. I would not have it any other 
way. I believe that the gift of music is meant to be shared.

Why I Teach Music

WHY MUSIC?

I. Music is a Science. It is exact, specific, and it demands exact 
acoustics. 
A conductor's full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, 
intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with the 
most exact control of time.

II. Music is Mathematical. It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of 
time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on 
paper.

III. Music is a Foreign Language. Most of the terms are in Italian, German, 
or French; and the notation is certainly not English - but a highly 
developed 
kind of shorthand that used symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of 
music is the most complete and universal language.

IV. Music is History. Music usually reflects the environment and times of its
creation, often even the country and/or racial feeling.

V. Music is Physical Education. It requires fantastic coordination of 
fingers,
hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles in addition to extraordinary 
control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which 
respond 
instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

VI. Music Develops Insight and Demands Research.

VII. Music is all these things, but most of all, Music is Art.
It allows a human being to take all these, dry technically boring, (but 
difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing 
science cannot duplicate; humanism, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

That is why we teach music:
Not because we expect you to major in music
Not because we expect you to play or sing all your life...

But so you will be human
So you will recognize beauty
So you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world
So you will have something to cling to
So you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good - in
short, more Life.

Mission Label:

Mission

<center>PREPARATION FOR LIFE</center>

We all want our children to experience a healthy, happy and prosperous life 
and to enjoy themselves in the process. There are certain mental tools which 
aid in this goal, and music is crucial in honing these tools:
Creativity. 
Music opens horizons of the mind and supports wonderment, imagination, 
appreciation, and sensitivity. Creativity is the source of possibility and 
is 
a mental muscle that must be trained and exercised often.
Communication. 
Music is a language beyond words. Music can only be explained with music 
because of its various styles, textures, tempos, and dynamics. Music truly 
stirs the soul of people. No words or visual display can come close to the 
emotional impact of music.
Critical Assessment. 
Music is one of the key areas where an individual can develop a consistency 
between intellectual and emotional understanding. Here is the chance to 
bridge the cognitive and affective data of life, which many feel is the 
recipe of genius. We can create formulas instead of just solutions, and we 
can be pro-active rather than re-active. We can open the mind and avoid 
tunnel vision - and in doing so, come up with discerning opinions which 
develop quality character.
Commitment. 
It is almost impossible to be "partially committed" to music. One may quit 
on 
a test, refuse to turn in an assignment, or just not be aware of what is 
going on in a lecture class, but the participation level in music requires a 
focus of attention unlike most subjects in school. Music causes one to learn 
persistence and the value of "not giving up," even when there is the 
temptation to throw in the towel. Many have pointed to "stay power" as one 
of 
the greatest personal attributes in our society. Welcome to one of the key 
benefits of the study of music.

Excerpts from "The Value of Music"
by Tim Lautzenheiser
http://www.tmea.org/027_Magazine/Special_Edition/valueofmusic_r.htm

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