Our Song

The Santa Rosa Children’s Chorus was founded in 1984 by Juelle Hinman to create a professional level, non-denominational chorus for the children of Sonoma County. In 2017, the name was changed to the Santa Rosa Children’s Choral Academy to better reflect the rigorous musical academic and performance training.

Supporting the arts is an important part of our mission, thus strengthening the base of the community. Over the years, our reputation has grown, along with performances with the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphonic Chorus, Opera Santa Rosa, the Sonoma County Bach Choir, and Ballet California’s production of The Nutcracker.

Our goal is to discover musically oriented youth, to provide them with the opportunity to gain a rich musical education, and to experience the challenges, training, and joy of belonging to a chorus of performing excellence.

Our voices have taken us around the country and around the world.

In 1998, the Chorus went on a concert tour to Italy, performing in Rome, Florence, Venice and a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In 2003 the Chorus toured Germany and Austria, followed by a tour in 2016 in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Highlights of the trip included performances in the Wormser Dom, the wedding church from “The Sound of Music” in Salzburg, on the steps of the Schönbrunn Palace, in a chapel in Esterhazy Palace, and more.

Musical training is more potent than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful; and also because he who has received this true education becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes, he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education had made him long familiar.
Plato

Artistic Direction

Carol Menke

Carol Menke, Artistic Director

Choral conductor and lyric soprano Carol Menke began her musical studies at the piano with her mother at age five, and at age eight, started flute lessons. She entered college with aspirations of a career as a flautist. However, participation in a voice class led to recognition of her superb vocal gifts. Following graduation from CSU at Chico, she attended the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien, Austria, which confirmed her passion for the Art Song genre. The younger singer was heard in performance many times at the Schuberthaus in Vienna. Miss Menke later completed her Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance.

Carol maintains a full schedule as teacher and choral conductor in addition to solo engagements. She recently retired after 30+ years teaching at the Santa Rosa Junior College, and is now the Director of Music at the Presbyterian Church of the Roses. She is the Artistic Director of Cantiamo Sonoma, a distinguished a cappella chamber choral ensemble, and teaches privately in her vocal studio in Santa Rosa.

 

President
Susan Little
Directors
Connie Vocature
Rosaura Flores
Priscilla Johnstone
Gene Wright
Menu