By Norah Jewett ‘25
Starting in this new 2023-2024 school year, Olivia Minchello has taken the job as the new choir director for BHS. Since Ms. Pilanen-Kudlik (or better known as Ms. PK) retired at the end of last year, people both in and outside of the music department were speculating who could fill the large role left behind. However, Ms. Minchello has taken the position instride and is quickly making the adjustment to the BHS Music Department. I got the chance to ask her some questions about the experience so far at BHS.
Q: How have you been finding BHS so far?
A: I love it. Obviously every school, every district has its flaws, however, I’ve been very supported by the people around me. It helps that I’ve been dreaming of being a choir director, specifically a high school choir director, so I’m living the dream!
Q: How did you know you wanted to teach music?
A: I’ve been singing my whole life, but in middle school, I joined my first real choir, auditioned for everything I could and I fell in love with it. In high school, the choir I was in was really the place where I found my support, my people and an adult I could look up to. When I was struggling in school, choir was one of the only things to get me through, and so I knew I wanted to go to music school. And music school is very hard. There’s an idea that music school is easy and just making music all the time, but it comes with a lot of time that is not accounted for in credits, for example. But I still wanted to do it, and I started my college career as a performance major.
I remember sitting in my dorm with one of my closest friends who was a music education major, and I said, “I want to teach choir.” And she in turn replied, “then what are you doing?” And that made me question why I wasn’t a music education major, I had never put the two together. But then I switched, and it was the best decision I ever made.
Q: What has been your favorite part of the job so far?
A: Definitely the students. I love rehearsing music, but the students make all the difference. Especially in a class like choir. It’s different than going to a class like algebra or bio, because it’s very much a community that is worked for, it doesn’t just happen. It’s a community that shows up for each other, and that’s really important, those relationships. I would not be able to do that without those.
Q: What has been the most challenging part of the job?
A: The transition has been challenging. The students have been handling it really well, but understand it’s hard for them as well. I have to say, my predecessor Ms. PK was amazing and left some big shoes to fill. But overall I think the transition has been pretty smooth. The other thing that has posed a challenge is the stuff that you don’t think about, such as logistics that are specific to school. It’s the stuff that I don’t know until I don’t know them. It’s hard to prepare for that. But I’m very lucky to have people to support me. Mr. Costa the band director, Mr. Swiniuch at the middle school, and Ms. PK, who’s still around, have been of great help to me. It’s nice to not just have coworkers, but people you can rely on.
Q: Do you have any new short term or long term goals for the department?
A: I do want to grow in numbers, but that isn’t the main priority. Mr. Swiniuch and I want to bridge the gap between middle and high school because in the past there’s been a separation between the two and the middle to high school numbers would drop significantly. We want to take the stigma away from what it use to be before both Mr. Swiniuch and I had assumed our positions. We want students to build that lifelong love of music instead of getting a bad taste of it at some point and dropping it, not knowing how amazing it could have been.
We’ve also been working on bonding and musicianship within the group. During the pandemic, those things really fell because it was next to impossible to keep those up over the time we spent on Zoom. We’ve been relearning those musicianship skills as we move away from the pandemic as we reassess what needs to be expected of our students.
Q: What is one thing you would want people to know about teaching music?
A: It is not easy. It’s a lot of moving pieces. However, it is incredibly rewarding and worth it. Work-life balance is super important because when you teach music–especially with after and before school rehearsals–you can be at work all the time. But teaching music is making that decision to follow that passion instead of choosing something that seemed more “reliable.” And it was worth it. I’m doing the thing that I love and I’m getting paid for it! And I love going to work. I no longer wake up in the morning and dread going to work and get going. So if you’re interested in pursuing music outside of high school, that’s what you’re thinking about and passionate about, take the leap.
We look forward to seeing Ms. Minchello’s work with the choir and musical! You can find the choir and spring musical on Instagram at @bevhs.choirs and @bevhs.musicaltheatre.
