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04/20/2016 08:00 AMIt must have looked peculiar to anyone watching: A Tuesday night at Andrews Memorial Town Hall in Clinton, a caravan of cars streaming in and out of the parking lot, windows down, drivers pointing and shouting, “Turn around and go to the church! Turn around! Go to the church!”
“A lot of funny stuff happens on rehearsal nights,” Jeremy Milton, director of the Choral Club of Clinton, admits. “We used to practice at the Town Hall. When that was no longer available, we moved to the Methodist Church, which is where we rehearse full-time now.”
One night, a miscommunication sent at least half the choir to the Town Hall and the rest to the church. A few hand signals and U-turns later and the group found its place, and each other, and began with warm-ups. Mi-me-ma-mo-mu.
This year marks the Choral Club’s 90th season and Jeremy’s third directing. The non-auditioned group of 30 to 50 voices, ranging from teens to seniors, has put on a concert every year since 1926, except during World War II. This year’s concert will take place on Sunday, June 5, at the United Methodist Church of Clinton.
“I believe very strongly that music is for everyone and that everyone should learn about and take part in it in any way that interests them,” says Jeremy, whose love of music can be traced back to the 3rd grade and has grown into a full-time career.
In addition to his work with the Choral Club of Clinton, Jeremy is a frequent guest conductor at festival ensembles throughout New England; a presenter of music education clinics for the University of Maine, University of Southern Maine, and the Maine Music Educators Association; and the choral director for Old Saybrook Public Schools, where he conducts eight choirs.
“The 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade choirs are non-auditioned and typically perform in December and May. The non-auditioned Blue Choir, made up of high school freshmen and sophomores, and junior/senior Gold Choir generally perform three times each year, including the OSW Major Works Festival in February. Treble Choir, which is made up of women in grades 9 to 12; Men’s Chorus, made up of men in grades 9 to 12; and Chamber Singers, both men and women in grades 9 to 12 are the auditioned choral groups that perform a variety of advanced music from the Renaissance to the 21st century.”
Jeremy also teaches music theory at Old Saybrook High School and serves as music director for annual spring musicals. This year’s production, Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, was his fourth.
As for how he got involved in the Choral Club of Clinton, three years ago the club’s president sent out a mass email “in a bit of a panic,” Jeremy recalls.
“The director they had found was unable to do it. I had been thinking about getting involved with a community group, so I emailed for more information. The board invited me to a meeting so that I could ask any questions and see what I thought. When I arrived at the meeting, it was very obvious that they had already decided I would be the director and really wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he says. “I really enjoy working with them. It’s a very different dynamic than teaching in school, where my first priority is teaching concepts and musical growth. With a community choir, that’s still very important, but the top priority is really friendship, fun, and sharing a love of singing. We welcome people of all ages and musical abilities.”
Each year, Jeremy selects music that reflects the choir’s diverse voices. This year’s repertoire includes selections from classical works, gospel, jazz, and Broadway.
‘I Want to Do That’
Jeremy grew up in a rural community in central Maine, a state whose motto—Dirigo—incidentally means “I direct” or “I lead.”
“As a kid, I loved playing Ninja Turtles, Batman, and Power Rangers with my sister and cousins, who lived just down the street. Both of my parents were teachers—mom taught 6th grade, and dad was an elementary special education teacher—and I remember spending a lot of time with them at school. I also remember my dad really wanting me to be involved in (and good at) sports, but I never was. I stopped trying out in high school, but was involved in Taekwondo until I graduated. I got up to a brown belt.”
Surprisingly, he says, his public school K-12 music program was not particularly strong.
“But I didn’t know that at the time. I started playing viola in 3rd grade and trumpet in 5th and began singing in high school. Music classes were always my favorite, and not that I was a bad student—I was usually on honor roll—I was much better at music than anything else in school,” he says. “My parents were pretty supportive with private lessons and music camps to augment my music education when I needed more than what the public school could provide.
“At the end of my sophomore year in high school, I went to the Maine Summer Youth Music [MSYM] camp at the University of Maine, and it changed my life,” he says. “I remember sitting in choir rehearsal, having Rob Westerberg as a conductor, and thinking, ‘I want to do that.’”
Jeremy started taking voice lessons as soon as he got home from camp. That fall, he made it into the all-state chorus.
“The rest,” he says, “is history. I still work at MSYM for a week each summer directing musical theater.”
Jeremy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Maine in 2008 and taught for three years at a private boarding school in Maine while working on his master’s in choral conducting. During his tenure, enrollment in music at the academy more than quadrupled, the music curriculum expanded, and the concert choir was invited to perform for the South Korean Ministry of Education during its visit to the United States. At the time, however, the school was struggling with enrollment.
“The headmaster made it clear to all of us that we were a business and needed to make money or there would have to be cuts to faculty positions. I disagreed with that philosophy. I wasn’t particularly happy there.”
In 2011, he was offered a graduate assistantship, teaching two undergraduate music courses, which would pay for the rest of his master’s degree if he went back full-time.
“That was a no-brainer,” he says.
He was hired by Old Saybrook schools in 2012 and embarked on his doctor of musical arts degree from Boston University in 2014.
“Doctoral studies are allowing me to really dig into current research in music education in order to expand my knowledge. This research helps me devise new ways to get more people experiencing and getting involved in music. In my research, I have focused mostly on LGBTQ issues as they relate to music education and particularly student teachers. For a long time, the subject of LGBTQ issues was so taboo that researchers didn’t dare study it for fear of losing their jobs. In the last decade or so, society has become more open-minded in regard to LGBTQ issues, and research has been conducted, but not very much when compared to other areas of social sciences, and even less specific research on music student teachers.
“We know that there are challenges present in regard to sexual identity, but those challenges need to be identified and documented before we know what types of supports will help them,” he says.
“I’m also interested in the social aspects of music and the relevancy of music education. Obviously I believe that music education is incredibly important, but I think that the way it, and classical music in general, is presented to people is offensively exclusive. We took a busload of kids to the Metropolitan Opera in March—granted it was a Tuesday night—but there were a huge number of empty seats. A Taylor Swift concert on a Tuesday night would easily fill a football stadium. There’s a reason for that, and I don’t believe it’s because Taylor Swift is a better musician than those at the Met.
“We need to start recognizing the value of all styles of music, and that will bring more people of all ages into school and community music programs,” he says. “Inclusiveness is a big part of the music faculty’s philosophy at Old Saybrook Public Schools and plays a big part in the fact that we have around 50 percent of the student body involved in the music program.”
When he’s not teaching, directing, or doing homework, you can catch Jeremy on a train to New York City with friends, camping and hiking in Maine (“You can’t beat summer in Maine; all of my family is still there, so I try to make it up there every few months, especially since I have a new niece”), or binge-watching Netflix.
“It’s important to balance a busy schedule with a little R&R. My roommate and I have been on the last level of the video game Donkey Kong Country 2 since last July. There just hasn’t been enough time since then to finish it. We’re determined, though.”
Jeremy shares a home in Niantic with two roommates and a little cat named Mandarin.
He’s a member of the American Choral Directors Association, National Association for Music Education, and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.