Mr. Winkelman

Dear Students, 

I wanted you to hear this from me and not through rumor. As most of you are aware I have been holding two full time jobs, here as a counselor, and the other at UVU. UVU has offered me an Endowed Professorship which happens very seldom at any university.  As hard as it is for me to do I have accepted this professorship and will be retiring from Hillcrest as of December 31. This has been a very hard decision for me.  Hillcrest is such an incredible place. Thank you for being a part of my life, I will truly miss you.

Mr. Winkelman

♪♫Meet the Officers!♫♪

This year's ♪CHOIR OFFICERS♪!! Woooohooo! Now its time to meet them:

Here they are!

This year's Choir President is Andrew Plehn.

Andrew Plehn is the Choir President this year! A bass in Concert Choir and Vocal Ensemble, a stellar pianist, and a sexy beast, according to Jullian. His favorite thing to do is jump up and down, he drives a silver mini cooper, and he is widely known as a jokester. He enjoys singing, laughing, long walks on the beach and Emily (Torgersen.)

This year's Choir Vice-president and Soprano Section Leader is Emilee Burton.

Emilee Burton is the Vice President and Soprano Section Leader of the Hillcrest Choirs this year. "I loves to sing (obviously...), perform theatre, and laugh. A lot. I am also a member of Productions Company and the Theatre Presidency, as well as a full diploma IB candidate. I hope that this year's theme will truly become the motto of the Hillcrest choirs this year, and that through hard work and dedication, we will become better people, and make our audiences better too. I love Hillcrest and those in choir who come together to give to something bigger than themselves. "Live every day of your life so that your example may be worthy of imitation." -Brigham Young--Emilee

Here is Julie Jacobs, the Secretary and Social Chair in Choir this year.

The lovely Julie Jacobs is the choir secretary this year and is super excited to be involved. She is a soprano in Vocal Ensemble and is loving every minuet of it! Julie stands tall at an impressive 5' 1" and is full of crazy and fun energy. She has great style and always looks like a million and two bucks, plus she's always smiling! She hopes to know all of the choral students by name by the end of musical and is doing quite well in that endeavor. Julie Jacobs everyone, give her a hand!

Emily Torgersen is the Choral Librarian.

The "Choral Department Mama" Emily Torgersen is the Librarian this year. A large job that has been relentlessly tackled by this beauty. Emily is also a soprano in Vocal Ensemble and Concert Choir, she is a kind and hard working soul. Emily is more deeply involved in this years choral program than nearly anyone else seeing as she is the daughter of this years Choir Mama, and acts that part in her absence. Emily loves to sing and hopes that this year the choral students will all find the same love of music. Emily is a Pit Singer in the musical this year along with her best friend, me ;)

The Dress Chair of choir this year is Eve Royce:

Eve Royce is the Dress Chair for the choir department.-- I am a soprano in Concert Choir and Vocal Ensemble. I also have played the violin for 6 years and am currently participating in both String Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra at Hillcrest High under the direction of Mrs. RaNae Dalgleish. Outside of music, i enjoy reading, helping people, and fangirling. I look forward to coming to know each member of the choir department more closely and to helping in any way i can. i have 2 little sisters who i love very much and i am obsessed with fictional characters. What is life? IDEK. Dramione! Vampires! Allons-y! This bio is brought to you by the number 5 and the letter E. --Eve

Abe Daye, the Tech Rep. in choir.

Babraham Daye (Abe) is this years Tech Rep. Abraham is a bass in Vocal Ensemble and Concert Choir. He is also a member of Hillcrest's Stage Crew in which he is a sound tech. Abe is a quietly hilarious soul who can surprise you to crying you laugh so hard- without warning. He is a senior this year and took part in Hillcrest's award winning Shakespeare team. Abe enjoys gold fish, hand stands and  dubstep. And laughter.

And I am the Historian this year, Lynzee Bowthorpe.

In case it wasn't clear by the way I "introduced" myself, I am the one who has been posting:)... And I am clearly the Choir Historian, which means i am the least technical and most fun. I get to take pictures all year long!- And I also get to record all of our funny quotes from the board, do the Calender board, and make a scrapbook. I love singing and have been doing so for... well for quite a long long time. My favorite color is Yellow, my favorite animal is a Turtle, closely followed by a Duck. I am very outgoing, loud, random, weird and many other things. I am the one and only person who refers to Mrs. Dalgleish as NaeNae. I love Disney, books, soft blankets, and candy. I also am a big Avatar (the last airbender) fan, as well as Sherlock, Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time, Lightning Theif, and Harry Potter nerd. Any how, that's me, lets be friends.

Our Alto Section leader is beautiful Aly Wise.

"Hi friends! My name is Aly, and I'm your friendly neighborhood alto section leader. I've always loved to sing, and I've always loved musical theatre. This is my very first choir though! I'm a junior, 16 years old, and I really love root beer floats. My favorite color is yellow, my favorite musical is 9 to 5, my favorite flowers are daisies and sunflowers and my favorite movie is the Princess and the Frog. I love everything Disney. I'm also a waitress at the Desert Star Playhouse, and I have twin baby brothers who are 1 year and 2 weeks old. Also, I love you all. A lot. Especially you altos. (:"--Aly

Elliot Burri is the 2nd time Tenor Section Leader

Elliot is the Tenor section leader in the choir department again this year. He is a well known peach. He works at Rock Creek Pizza and has a well known girl-friendship with Corinne Perry, graduated alto section leader of 2012-2013. “He is a tall, dapper young man,” Corinne often says. He likes long walks in the rain, picking up the ladies, skittles, ducks, Pokémon and exciting adventures such as dragon fighting.

And last, but not least is our Bass Section Leader, Eli Ghaeini.

Eli Ghaeini is this years Bass Section-leader. Eli is also a member of Productions Company and enjoys theatre very much. Eli was also a part of Hillcrest's Award Winning Shakespeare Team for 4 years. Eli is a spontaneous man and enjoys telling long stories to an invested audience. Andrew is not the only Bass jokester, because Eli is in that club as well.

Here is Mama Torgersen, the Choir Mama this year!

Our wonderful Mama Torgersen! Our Choir Mama this year is the delightful Jami Torgersen. Mama Torgersen works at Alta High School during the day. She is a wonderful and kind person and we are all blessed to have her as our mama this year!

We will also introduce our wonderful Director, RaNae Dalgleish

"Hello! My name is RaNae Dalgleish and I am the director of the choirs and orchestra at Hillcrest High School. I also have had the privilege of teaching orchestra at Union Middle School for the last two years. I am in my sixth year of teaching at Hillcrest and LOVE my job! I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be then hanging around with my amazing, talented and funny students!

Just a little bit about me… I started playing the violin at age 4 (my mom used to brag that I could read notes before I could read words!) and feel that my violin is definitely my first love! I picked up the viola, cello and guitar along the way. I attended Utah State University on full violin scholarship for 2 years where I majored in violin performance. I transferred to the University of Utah (again on full violin scholarship) but changed my major to Music Education. After graduation I was hired by Granite School District where I taught for 9 years. My assignments varied from elementary music to Director of Choirs at Olympus High. I “retired” from public education for 14 years to raise my growing family of 5 children—all the while maintaining a private violin/viola studio between 25-45 students.

A fun bit of trivia about my family for you…all of my own children have belonged to the Hillcrest Husky Performing Arts! I have loved and admired their teachers and the passion with which they were taught. In my wildest dreams I never would have guessed that I would one day be a teacher at HHS—my own children’s school!

Some of the things I love most…my family, my students, diet coke, singing Alto II in the Salt Lake Choral Artists Concert Choir and the Salt Lake Vocal

Artists, traveling to exotic countries, hearts of all kinds, listening to music, playing music on my violin and singing music with my voice, laughing, chocolate, snorkeling, painting ceramics, shopping and last but not least…wearing colorful lipstick!" --RaNae







P.S. I definatly made up over half of those bios, and over half of the content in the bios were made up facts that i imagined... So if you want to know the truth from the not so acurate, you'll just have to go talk to them!

And So It Begins!

As long as it has taken us to begin the long process of editing and re-birthing this blog, it is finally happening! Welcome to the next school year of 2013-2014 two months late!

And now on to more important things:

First: This year's theme, as you see in the top right corner is, "Come as you are, Leave better than you were" which we shortened to "Be then Be Better" for convenience.

Second: Our first performance is coming up! October 8th (a Tuesday) at 7:00 pm is the Performing Arts Showcase! This is our first time trying a new idea of combining all the performing arts first performances into on large event, so it should be just GREAT:)

Third: For all you students, please remember that the day before the showcase, the 7th, we have a rehearsal at 3:00 pm  even though there is no school that day. It will be an informative and important rehearsal!

Fourth: The tour approval forms are due (past due), Tour will be in the spring, to New York City! I'm told the venue we will be performing at is very neat and will be lots of fun!

Last: This is going to be the new thing-- the CHOIR BLOG!!-- We are going to update it anytime there is something we need the students, parents or populace in general to know, so THANK YOU for being the first updated and reading!!

Oh and really last last: just for fun here are a few pictures of the parade- and are float therein.

We love choir:)