Denver Children's Choir

Lisa

Meet the Staff: Mercedes Campana

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It is my pleasure to talk about Mercedes Campana. I have known her for 33 years as I am her proud mother. Merce’s favorite composer as a youth was Mozart. She watched Amadeus hundreds of times and was singing the “Queen of the Night” aria from The Magic Flute when she was 5 years old.

Merce was a charter member of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Choir’s Alpine ensemble when we opened fall of 1996 at 7 years old. The following year she was promoted to Summit, which was our mixed high school ensemble back then.

Flash forward to the present. Merce has arranged dozens of songs for the DCC. Last spring we performed 3 of her arrangements for our Harmony of Children spring concert. The Fourteeners, Kol Nashim, and Impromptu performed her original composition, Mother Earth for the “Sing Out for SafeHouse!” concert in 2017.

Merce has accompanied numerous DCC ensembles and is one of the primary conductors for our Fourteeners and Mountain Aires. She brings a fresh view with many innovative ideas to the musical staff. We all have much to learn from her vast knowledge about world music and music theory.

Merce is passionate about the Denver Children’s Choir and musical excellence. We are very lucky to have her on staff and in our lives.
– Lisa Cameron, Music Director

“Growing up, my sisters and I always referred to the choir as our church: our community, our friend network, and our spiritual realization.

“The Denver Children’s choir has meant so much more to me than just music over the years. Some of my most wonderful friendships today were forged at the choir as a child, and I feel privileged to facilitate future connections today. I absolutely love going to work!”

– Mercedes Campana

Read more about Merce here.

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Thin Air Retreat 2022

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Oh, my goodness! 45 singers and 8 adults venture into the mountains on a rainy evening to do what? Camp? Why? The DCC Fourteeners and Mountain Aires braved all to be together!! It has been a tradition for the Mountain Aires to retreat to a large property in Jefferson Colorado to camp, eat good food (and bad food), play numerous activities, get to know one another, and SING! This year we brought the Fourteeners as well. I do think it was a grand success, but let me elaborate…

  • CAMPING FUN: Camping this year involved TENTS, 18 TENTS. The set-up on Friday was in the rain. Did anyone complain – NO. There was lots of giggling going on. The Flint families were clearly the most experienced campers bringing two tents and helping many others set up. Chaperones Sharon and Kate did all the repair work after the storm on Saturday. Everyone survived! Luckily, the next night was beautiful. The stars were out and you could see the Milky Way.
  • ILLEGAL PETE’S: Delicious food started with Illegal Pete’s “make your own nachos” on Friday, Santiago’s burritos on Saturday, sandwiches & snacks for lunch, and Greek Chicken with rice pilaf and green beans for dinner. S’mores by a campfire for dessert! Cold breakfast in the morning muffins, fruit, and yogurt. We did not suffer. (Thanks to Sharon, Kate, Christina, and Sonja for cleaning up.)
  • ACTIVITIES: well, how honest do I get? Yes, there was a trampoline, there were bows and arrows, throwing knives and axes (with adult supervision), darts, cards, puzzles, ATV rides (adults drove), and cows to feed. There were walks and time to just hang out. There, that sums it up.
  • DOCTOR MERCE: My cousin, Merce, joined us from Grand Junction. She helped out behind the scenes EVERYWHERE, including a few times she was called to be a doc (nothing serious ?).
  • KARAOKE: Karaoke night on Saturday (thank you Merce, my daughter, for organizing) was such a treat. Who knew we had so many passionate soloists? Now we definitely know. We were spellbound by some beautiful renditions of pop songs.
  • REHEARSALS: Our rehearsals were an outstanding success! “We” learned almost all of our notes to five Thin Air songs. (FYI – Thin Air is Fourteeners and Mountain Aires combined for SATB repertoire.)

The retreat gave us a huge jump start for the year in terms of music and team building. Here are some comments from singers taken from a survey about the retreat…

“This was way more fun than I thought it would be and a wonderful experience. Thank you!”
“It was a great bonding experience for the group, thank you for that opportunity!”

Thank you to the Tuesday night team!
Lisa, Travis, Merce, Mary, and Frank

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2018 Cambodia Service Tour

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In June 2018 twenty DCC singers accompanied Music Director, Lisa Cameron, on a life-changing trip to Cambodia. They visited the ancient ruins of the world’s largest spiritual monument, Angkor Wat and learned about the country’s tragic genocide by visiting the Killing Fields. Most importantly they experienced a musical connection with the children and volunteers at Pour un Sourire d’Enfant. This French School (PSE) serves 2000 children a day in Phnom Penh and Houses 1000 orphans who have been rescued from the garbage dumps in the outskirts of town.

“I loved that the kids wanted to teach us their Khmer songs even more than they wanted to learn our English ones,” said singer Rachel Hilbert. Director Cameron remarked that it was so terrific to “connect with children who don’t need cell phones, TVs, treats, or presents to be happy.”

The DCC’s bi-annual tour program offers important opportunities for meaningful cultural exchange and collaboration. For many of our singers, these tours are the first opportunities they have had to travel outside of the Denver metro area, and tuition assistance is made available to any child who needs it to participate. Past tours have included a Civil Rights Tour to the Deep South and visits to New York, Iowa, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Canada, France, Germany, and a combined tour to Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. In addition to performing independently and with local children’s choirs on these tours, our singers can sightsee, stay with local host families, and experience for themselves the truly universal language of music.

The Cambodia Service Tour included our Fourteeners (advanced female choir) and Mountain Aires (advanced male choir). Together, these two groups are known as Thin Air, our advanced ensemble performing a diverse repertoire for mixed voices. The singers are 12-18 years old, have strong backgrounds in choral singing, excellent vocal technique, and advanced sight-singing and musicianship skills.

The mission of the Denver Children’s Choir is as important today as it was when we began in 1995. Each year, we deliver choral programs in select schools and community-based settings throughout Denver to children ages 7-18 of diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Children learn to sing and read music while they develop self-confidence, build relationships, strive for excellence, and gain appreciation and respect for one another.

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