Phone: (210)356-5940

Email:

Degrees and Certifications:

Bachelor of Music Master of Music Music EC-12 Special Education EC-12

Mr. Ken Van Lysebettens - Director of Choirs - Ed White Middle School

Greetings Eagles and Guests!!!

Welcome to our Ed White MS Eagle Choir Program!  My name is Mr. Van and this is my 6th year in NEISD at Ed White/DATA Middle School as the Director of Choirs. 

It is my privilege and pleasure to be your choir director here at Ed White!  My music journey began with singing in my church choir and playing in the band throughout elementary, middle and high school.  Later I received a Bachelor of Music degree from the American Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree from DePaul University School of Music in Chicago, during which I embarked on careers in both a performance and education that have spanned over 40 years around the country as a professional musician, arranger and director. 

While working as a professional musician, I began my career as a music educator in my hometown of Chicago in 1988.  After teaching band, choir, drama and general music for 29 years, we moved to the San Antonio area in 2017 where I began teaching in the SCUC ISD.   In August of 2019 I accepted an invitation to teach in NEISD becoming a member of the Ed White Eagles family and faculty as the Director of Choirs at Ed White Middle School.

To kick off the 2024-2025 Eagle Choir season, we're planning a September 20th trip to the Tobin Center for 'OPERA meets Mariachi!' sponsored by Opera San Antonio offered in partnership with Mariachi Campanas de America and Tobin Generation NEXT.  In the fall our Eagle Choirs also open the year with songs, games and treats at our a 'Bring A Friend To Choir Nite' followed by our October performances of our Eagle Choirs in our Fall Concert as well as our Veterans Day performances.  Region Choir auditions are held in late October with a registration deadline of October 11th.  We end the 1st quarter with our Eagle Fine Arts Family Fun Night scheduled the last Friday of each quarter at a different area venue...EVERYONE HAS A BLAST!  After our awesome late-October Eagle Choirs Halloween Costume & Karaoke party we close out the month of October with our Eagle Choirs performing along with other Ed White fine arts groups in our campus-wide Fall Festival. 

Moving on to November, our Eagle Choirs travel about this time (or in February) to a'San Antonio SPURS' game during which we have performed both during the half-time show and for the opening national anthem.  During the December holiday season we also take in a combined choir/band/orchestra holiday concert at Trinity University...incredibly talented college groups to say the least!  Our own holiday concert performance tour usually includes area performances at the Brookdale Oakwell Senior Living, one of the uncontested student favorites where our students perform, visit with the residents, carol through their halls offering gifts (dollar store) and bringing holiday love and cheer to the elderly in our community.  We close out our festive December schedule with our Eagle Choirs Winter Holiday Festival Concert, the PTA Varsity Fine Arts Concert and our Family Fine Arts Fun Nite.

After the holiday break our varsity groups begin preparation for  UIL Concert & Sightreading Contest in February (26th thru 28th this year) as well as our spring concert performances.  We also will begin auditions for this year's 2025 Ed White Eagle Talent Show following last year's May 2024 musical production of Beauty & The Beast'!  We will close out the year with our Eagle Choirs Spring concert, community performances and our Eagle Choir Awards Banquet.  

With an active schedule throughout the year, our students also look forward to the Region Choir auditions, Clinic and Concert performance, our Pop Festival Concert, our Eagle Choir Awards Banquet and so much more!

SO WELCOME BACK!!!  We are looking forward to seeing you all and hearing your voices this year !!  For those that are incoming new members...WELCOME ONE AND ALL!!!  So excited to meet you and have you sing with us!!  FYI:  Choir is a 'No Anxiety Zone'.  We come to enjoy making music together and THAT'S WHAT WE DO!!  We want to focus on developing our voices and the listening skills that make us sound B-E-A-UUUU-TIFUL together!!

So come one, come all and let's SING, SING, SING!!!

See you SOON!! :) 

Mr. Van 

Director of Choirs

Ed White Middle School

 

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    2024-25 Eagle Choir Class Schedule

                                          (as of 08/11/24)

     

    Mr. Van – Director of Choirs

    Performing Arts Department

    Room 1102

     1st Period:  8:25 - 9:16am       

    Music Appreciation  (6th)

     2nd Period:  9:20 - 10:06am       

    Varsity/Non-Varsity Girls Choir (7th/8th) 

     3rd Period:  10:10 - 10:56am          

    Ensemble Choir  (Beginner Boys - 6th)

     4th Period:   11:00 - 11:46am        

    Varsity/Non-Varsity Boys Choir (7th/8th)

    *********LUNCH PERIOD**********

     5th Period:  12:24 - 1:10pm       

    Ensemble Choir (Beginner Boys - 6th)

     6th Period:  1:14 - 2:00pm          

    Ensemble Choir (Beginner Girls - 6th)

     7th Period:   2:04 - 2:50pm

    CONFERENCE PERIOD

     8th Period:   2:54 - 3:40pm         

    Ensemble Choir (Beginner Girls - 6th)

     

              

     

     

     

  • Learning in the Ed White Eagle Choirs: 

     In our choir program we work throughout the year on all fronts of vocal pedagogy and techniques using our Rhythm Reader, SOS rhythm exercises and other sources to improve our understanding and performance of rhythms and counting as well as ensemble rhythmic performance at the different levels.  Believeing that sound crystalizes and anchors concepts if introduce prior to teaching concepts, the sightreading philosophy we operate on is a three-tier process:  1.) Sound before Sight  2.) Sound to Sight and,  3.)  Sound at Sight.  Our pitch and melodic sight reading skills are targeted in our SOS Sightreading exercises which we use in conjuction with the Sightreading Factory online app that has endless variations, length and levels of sightreading challenges and performance practice.  We vary our warm-ups in range and difficulty based on the level of the students vocal skills, techniques and music . 

    Our choral groups are learning the importance of performance practices that develop not only understanding, performance skills and outstanding vocal techniques but also they develop musical independence empowering students in performance skills and confidence to take on increasingly greater challenges in the performing arts as well as requiring students to transfer knowledge (higher order/critical thinking skills) which in turn requires students to examine, compare, contrast, analyze and discriminate between things they see and hear.  Performance skills also make students more efficient in rehearsal saving time in the process and excelerating learning as practices become an ingrained part of students' music making process and vocabulary opening the door to more advanced repertoire and nuanced concepts.  Performance practices also embed expressivity into the learning process as an integral part instead of being an after thought.

    Many of these foundational rules of choral singing and general rules for music may be found on our choir hall back wall right above the students at every rehearsal which we refer to in our daily choral warm-ups, drills and  seasonal repertoire rehearsals as practical examples occur.  These rules help students to form paradigms for proper vocal techniques that unify many of the blend issues that arise helping them to sing 'as one' with consistent tone quality and intonation.  Rules for final consonants, punctuation, diphthongs, syllabic/word stress, the word 'the', final and internal R sounds, decreasing/increasing vocal parts, moving voice parts, the sluir, long tones, ascending and descending pitches, repeated pitches, repeated phrases or sections, suspensions, pick-up notes, motifs and themes.  We also discuss, demonstrate examples of and rehearse proper rather than improper placement of the voice or head voice (vs. throat voice)

    Our Eagle Choirs perform four all-program choral concerts in-house each year (Fall, Winter, Spring and EOY concerts) as well as holiday and special in-house performances (ie: Veterans Day, PTA Holiday Performance).  We also perform off-campus during the school year (ie: Spurs games, Brookdale Senior Living).  We also host fun activities like 'Bring A Friend Choir Nite', virtual Karaoke Coffee House Nites, school-wide talent shows and school musicals.

    Lots to do and learn in the Eagle Choirs program so COME JOIN US and SING, SING, SING!!!

    See you at the Eagle Choir Hall!

     

    Mr.Van - Director of Choirs

    Eagle Ensemble Choir

    Eagle Concert Chorale

    Eagle Chamber Singers

    Email: avanly@neisd.net

    Eagle Choir Hall:  (210)356-5940