Everyone who attended The School in Rose Valley is familiar with the beloved songbook, full of the lyrics for some 170 songs that form the musical heart of the school community. Now in its 5th edition, the songbook has been updated over the generations to reflect the folk evolution of Sing.

Today we are asking SRV alumni to help preserve the tradition of all-school Sing by supporting an essential addition to the songbook: printing the score—the actual music (melodies and chords)—of each song so that they can be more easily accompanied, learned, and passed down through the years.

As you may remember, songs from the songbook were often taught to new teachers and students just by singing them, which is a delightful yet far from perfect system for keeping a body of music alive. The retirement in recent years of both Lauren de Moll, Assistant Head of School, and Jodie Brown, Music Teacher, with a combined 54 years of service to the school, has left a musical gap in the Sing tradition. Lauren taught many of the songbook songs to Jodie who, with her extraordinary musical talent, mastered and memorized them.

Sing should not depend on the knowledge of any one or two individuals. Therefore, we are now raising money to hire Jodie to create the scores to accompany the songbook, including recommended keys and tempos for group singing. This project will not only make the music more accessible to new members of the community, it will ensure that the accumulated folk knowledge of SRV’s songbook is preserved, complete with idiosyncratic versions of all our old favorites.

If you valued Sing as a student or parent at SRV, please help give the gift of Sing to future generations by supporting this special one-time project.

Please make your donation by Friday, February 8th, 2019.