Do you know who the new choir teacher at our school is? If you don’t, you may want to stop by C101 at lunch, and meet her! Her name is Sarah Louise Harrell and has a very unique personality. She says “warsh” instead of “wash”, because she picked it up from her family, loves pot stickers, and the colors blue and green. She loves watching old TV and lately has been watching “I Love Lucy” re-runs, in fact, she thinks that she is going to be Lucy for Halloween this year.
Miss Harrell has lived in many California cities and attended Salinas High School, where she started choir her sophomore year. When she was applying for college, her dad told her to choose between having music being the focus of her life or music being something that she did on the side for fun. Miss Harrell decided that she loved music too much and applied to be in music education. She currently knows how to play many instruments, including the piano, guitar, and violin.
Miss Harrell’s favorite genres of music are musical theatre and Renaissance choral music, but she loves all music. She is a big fan of Elton John and loves Brahms and music by random German composers. Her favorite German composer is Alexander Fontsimenski, but mentions that no one knows who he is, because he disappeared in the Holocaust.
Miss Harrell has sung in many choirs herself. She has been in many musicals, such as Into the Woods, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Honk and has been the vocal director for Into the Woods, Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and other various shows. She also helped found an acapella group when she was in college.
Miss Harrell loves Pitman High School. Every faculty member and student that she has met has been really nice and helpful. She also acknowledges that she has the best choir kids and loves each student, as they are interesting, accepting, and will try new things. She is excited to work with the choirs and has many kids that are talented, and feels blessed to have them in her class. Miss Harrell believes that choir is about taking unique personalities and voices, and by bringing them together, she can create something amazing. She also teaches Guitar and Piano at Pitman and feels that all her students at Pitman are going to do really well this year!
Miss Harrell became a teacher because she likes helping people. She thinks music is really important, especially now, when music programs are getting cut all over the country. She thinks that music is about discovering who you are and being comfortable with yourself. She also thinks that it’s not just about creating new music majors but is about creating self expression. Miss Harrell also thinks that high school is an important time in one’s life because you are still figuring out who you are. Even when you go to college, you will still be forming yourself, and music can help you do that. Her dad always told her if she wasn’t a teacher she would be a lawyer, because Miss Harrell loves to read. However, she thinks that she would want to be a librarian, because she likes books. Instead of having a quiet library, she would probably have a loud library.
The next time you are by the C-Building, you should stop by C101 and give a shout-out to Miss Harrell.