Member Expectations
CHARIS is a non-audition chorus created to be a safe place for women to sing together and enjoy one another’s company. We have fun while working hard towards musical excellence. We are a performance group that produces concerts for the public and our friends and families, and we sell tickets for these concerts, so we owe our paying audiences the best performance we can give. To this end, we have these expectations of our members:
- Be on time for rehearsals and after the break.
- Keep chitchat to a minimum during rehearsal.
- Give the director or your section head a courtesy call or email if you will have to miss a rehearsal.
- Attend all rehearsals unless missing is absolutely unavoidable.
- After missing a rehearsal, get together with your section head or buddy the next week before rehearsal for music updates such as note changes, dynamic notations or changes to the program.
- In addition to weekly rehearsals, use learning tapes and other aids such as sectional rehearsals to learn the music.
Of all the items listed above, the most important is rehearsal attendance.
If you know in advance that there is an aspect of these expectations that you cannot meet such as arriving late to rehearsals because of work or childcare issues or the need to miss multiple rehearsals, please don’t assume that you can’t sing with us. Discuss it with the director and let him evaluate your situation. We want to make every effort to accommodate our members and still maintain the quality of our performance.
Members who have missed a fourth or fifth rehearsal for any reason or individuals who would like to join the chorus after the third or fourth rehearsal should also talk to the director to be certain that both are comfortable with the member’s ability to sing in the concert.
We have these expectations not to impose “rules” on our members, but to give ourselves the best opportunity possible to perform a great concert.
