Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 62. Hi, I’m Debbie O’Shea. And in this episode of the Crescendo Music Education podcast, I am lucky enough to speak to Jenny Moon. It’s just a delightful conversation. I love how she speaks about signposts in her journey as a Music Educator/Conductor, not highlights but signposts. I think that’s really special to think of them that way and how she’s completely herself when she’s in a room with young people.

Her advice to connect with something or find something that you love in repertoire that you do with your choirs, oh there’s so much from this episode that you will love. So enjoy part one, part two coming soon.

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too! The transcript of episode 062 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

Introducing Jenny Moon

Debbie
Hello, and in this edition of the Crescendo Music Education podcast, I have the delightful Jenny Moon. Hello, Jenny.

Jenny Moon
Hello, Deb. How are you?

Debbie
Fabulous, and all the more fabulous for speaking to you.

Jenny Moon
And it’s school holidays.

Debbie
Oh, yay. It’s so good. Mind you. That means for me working on my podcast and Crescendo. But yes it is, no alarms. You know, my time. It’s really good.

Jenny Moon
Yeah, but lucky for all of us that you do all of that in your holidays.

Debbie
Thank you, Jenny, I hope so.

Jenny Moon
We get to share in it too.

Debbie
Thank you. Well, I’m going to start off reading your bio. Okay, here we go. Because there will be a lot of people, it’s their bad luck.

Jenny Moon
They have no idea who I am.

Debbie
Yeah, well that might not know you yet. Okay. The people who do now you are saying yes, let’s hear from Jenny. Those people who don’t know Jenny or don’t know her background, and I don’t fully know your background because I’ve only got to know you fairly recently. So this is going to be an interesting read for me. Here we go. Jenny Moon is a highly regarded choral conductor specialising in children’s and youth choirs. A graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music Jenny is a passionate educator and advocate for choral music, and is a highly sought after conductor choral workshop presenter and adjudicator. She was a classroom music specialist for more than 30 years.

Jenny Moon
I started when I was 12.

Debbie
When you’re 12 yeah, that’s right. Don’t do the maths everyone. Working in rural schools in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast. She is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the Voices of Birralee, where she conducts their signature treble choir Brisbane Birralee voices, and co-conducts the Birralee Kids. She was until very recently, head of choral and vocal studies at Hillcrest Christian College on the Gold Coast where she developed and built a choral program of 12 choirs, including 4 excellence choirs, that’s a lot Jenny. Oh my goodness.

Jenny Moon
Yeah, I was a bit of a crazy person, you know, 16 years ago.

Debbie
I’m sure we’ll come up with how on earth you did that later on in the episode. All right. During her tenure with both organisations, Jenny has led international choral tours and achieved awards at international choral competitions in addition to numerous national awards, Jenny has been guest conductor at Queensland Conservatorium state honours programs, Gondwana National Choral School, the Festival of Voices in Hobart and at various choral festivals across Australia, as well as presenting regularly at workshops and professional development programs. Jenny has a passion for promoting Australian music, yes, to choirs and communities. She excels at engaging choristers in music across extensive styles to further develop their understanding of the world through the lens of text and music, oh that last bits, so well written. So those of you who don’t know Jenny, there it is, in a nutshell.

Jenny Moon
In a nutshell, that’s me.

Debbie
Listening to that Jenny, is there anything else you’d like to add to that summary?

Jenny Moon
Oh, gosh, well, you know, I’m a mum of two beautiful girls. I’ve got a 23 year old and a 19 year old. So I think that’s pretty important because that’s been a big part of my life is being a mum. And now of course, I’m the main caretaker of Bachi, the five year old caboodle. So that’s a work in progress. I think that bio is probably mostly about my last 10 years, I guess where I’d really decided that I wanted to pursue being a choral conductor, but I spent a long time being a classroom teacher which I absolutely loved, being a classroom teacher in both high school and primary school and then from that came the choral part, you know that I’m a piano player by instrument.

So, I was a piano major at The Con. Very very fortunate to work with the brilliant Leo Horowitz, and a violinist and so that’s my background. I come from a very musical family. So started off as a piano player, violinist. I’m not a singer. I have had singing lessons, but I wasn’t a singer. And yeah, so that’s my background basically.

How Jenny Moon’s Passion for Choir Developed

Debbie
When you’re in the classroom, how did your passion for choir develop?

Jenny Moon
I think I just was always, choir was always part of my life. I grew up in Cairns, you know, I still look at the very funny photos of me in the Cairns Choral Society, this little tot with her white dress and her blue sash and white gloves. Seriously in Cairns, you know, how hot is it in Cairns, and my little white gloves. So my Mum and Dad met funnily enough met in a choir in Rockhampton, my mother was the piano player of the musical union.

Very young, you know, piano player and my dad was a singer. And that’s how they met. My Dad can’t read a note of music. Not a note. But he’s got the most extraordinary voice and incredible ear. I loved growing up with him because I’d come home and I’d go Dad, Dad, what’s this piece of music and I’d sing something you know, and he go, oh, that’s Tchaikovsky’s Fourth or that’s the Elgar Enigma Variations or that like he had the most incredible classical music collection, and he loved music, but couldn’t read a note. And so they met in a choir.

Then I think choir was just always kind of a part of my life. And I was in a choir at school and I did a bit of choral at The Con. And there was just always this little niggle, I think, in the back of my mind how much I loved working in that space. I didn’t want to do string orchestras as my co-curricular whilst I was a string player, it just didn’t, it didn’t really float my boat to be, you know, working in that arena.

But standing in front of kids and sharing song just bought this incredible joy. And so I did a lot of singing in my secondary school classroom, lots of singing. Yeah, it just kind of developed out of that. And people came across my path who kept saying, You should do this, you should do more of this and pushing me into that into that area. So the two were very, very connected from a very early point in my teaching career. Yeah.

Debbie
Well, we’re very pleased you’re in it. That’s for sure.

Jenny Moon
I’m very blessed to be in it.

Debbie
And I think that comes across too when you work with children that you love it and you feel that you’re fortunate to be there too.

Jenny Moon
Yeah.

Debbie
I think that comes across, you know, that genuineness that you’re not just there because you have to be, you’re there because you love it. And you appreciate that you’re there?

Jenny Moon
Yeah, I do. I do love it and you can’t help but be joyous when you’re and I’m sure string players and concert band conductors feel exactly the same. But when you go to a seven o’clock rehearsal, and you’re exhausted, you know, it’s the middle of the week and you go, why am I going to a primary school boys treble rehearsal at seven o’clock on a Wednesday morning, oh, my gosh, I’m so exhausted and I’ve got a whole day of teaching.

And you get into that room, and there’s just this joyous energy and you sing and you laugh, and you interact and you feel good, because I sing in my rehearsals and model and demonstrate and you know, do all of these things, you can’t help but feel joyous, and it just sets you up for the rest of the day. So I always felt blessed. And I would always say, you know, quite often to my choristers when I had that overwhelming sense of it’s the end of the term, and I’m exhausted, but oh my gosh, I feel so good being here with you. I would say to them, I am so lucky to be able to do this, and I’m so lucky that I get to do this because it’s just joy. And I do, I do really feel blessed.

Highlights of Jenny Moon’s Journey So Far

Debbie
What would you consider to be the highlight or highlights of your journey so far? As a musician, music educator conductor, what would be a couple of high points?

Jenny Moon
Oh, my gosh, I’ve had so many brilliant moments. And I’ve met so many incredible people. And I’ve enjoyed so many opportunities, you know that I don’t think I can say any one particular has been a highlight. I actually think my journey as a musician has had very definite signposts, very definite. And I’m kind of a person who you know, pushes against what is expected. And it’s funny really, because I was never going to go to The Con.

I actually had said to my mother, so my two sisters and my mother had gone to The Con before me, you know, and I was there’s no way that I’m going to be seen dead at The Conservatorium, you know. I’d done my AMusA on piano in grade 11. So I ticked the box, I went, right tick the box. I’ve done it. I’ve seen it through, you know, my parents have been so supportive of giving me an education but that’s it. I’m done. I’m going to just concentrate and I actually wanted to do Law. Law was where I was heading. Yeah, and I got to grade 12 and I was working towards that. And it got to the point where I had to fill out my QTAC form.

And I suddenly had this moment of, Oh, my goodness, what if I don’t get into law? What’s my, what’s my backup plan here? You know, this is the 80s. Deb. I had to have a backup plan. And so I said to my mother, oh, look, I’m just gonna put The Con down for an audition. As you know, I better just put something down. And she, of course, was just but you wouldn’t be seen dead there. I’m like, I, well, I don’t really want to go but I better have a plan.

And, of course, that then sent my mother and my piano teacher into this spin. Because whilst I was working towards an LMus program that I would never ever do, I didn’t really have anything to audition with. And, and so they were just like, Ah, I went to the audition at The Con. I went in really not prepared very well, like, I should have been better prepared. And I kind of walked in with this attitude of, oh, look, you know, if it’s to be, and if I don’t, you know, and I walked out of my audition, Deb, and I burst into tears. The first thing I did, I shut the door, and I cried and cried, and my mother was like, what happened?

And I said, Oh, my gosh, I’ve blown it. This, I’ve blown it. I’m not gonna get in. She said, but you don’t want to go here. I said, I do. I do. I’ve made a mistake. Like, I can’t think of not being here. And it was just that moment of what were you thinking, you know, and it was just wow. Fortunately, I did get in. And that was the turning point where I was like, why are you resisting? Why are you resisting? Just because everybody else is doing it? Or your family? I have no idea. But it was this moment of No, actually. This is what you want to do. You want to be a muso.

So whilst it’s probably not a highlight to burst into tears after your audition. It certainly was a real moment in my journey that signposted that this is, this is actually where you you need to be and I’m so grateful that that happened. And then I guess there’s been other moments as an educator, music educator, I think the biggest turning point for me was when I was a high school teacher, high school music teacher, and once again, had said, No, I’m never going to be a primary school teacher, I can’t do it. I just don’t have the patience.

And I, you know, I want to teach Stravinsky to my kids. I want to have these, you know, and then I became a primary school teacher when my daughters were young, because I thought, I really want to know what it’s like to be a teacher at that age, you know, so I became a primary school teacher in 2006. And loved it. I absolutely loved it. I never thought I would love it as much.

And that introduced me to the young voice, because I heard children singing, and I’d always been surrounded by mostly high school choirs, you know, and then I just fell in love with that, that sound and that moment where they find their singing voice, and you go, Wow, yeah, that’s cool. So as an educator, that was probably a moment of another signpost for me. You know, that was a signpost to say, Hang on a minute, you’ve got a whole realm of things here that you’ve just, you know, you haven’t even explored yet.

Debbie
I was just gonna say the magic of working with young people. I mean, I know i’m biased but like, this is where they’re where their attitudes and foundations are set. It’s so important.

Jenny Moon
Yeah. So your next one, they just give you so much. And they’re so brave, and they’re willing to do anything. And, you know, the other thing is, I was completely myself in that room with young kids, you just, you can do anything that you feel, you know, you’ve just got to get rid of that energy. You just get rid of it. And I just Yeah, I loved being in that. I loved being in that space for the time I was in there. And then I think chorally my biggest moment, my biggest moment where I suddenly went, Yeah, this is what you want to do.

And you’re gonna laugh, you’re gonna laugh here, because you’re gonna say, Yeah, that’s probably not a highlight Jen. It was beginning of 1999 and I went out to the summer school that Guy Jansen used to run out at the uni, do you remember those schools? Rodney Eichenberger was out that year, I think anyway, it was it was summer school, and I went out to do choral conducting with some friends and colleagues from uni actually.

And I ended up being in the tutorial group with Karen Grylls from New Zealand. She was my lecturer. Well, the first I had with her she scared me, in a good way, in such a good way I was in such in awe of what she wanted to say to me. She, we connected and she, you know, she saw something and encouraged me and sort of said, well, have you ever thought of doing, you know, more study? Why don’t you come over and you could study a master’s, I was 10 weeks pregnant with my first baby.

And I had to keep leaving her lectures and things to go and be sick, because I had such bad morning sickness. Like, oh my gosh, you know, the timing of Oh I’m pregnant with my first baby. And I could think of nothing better than jumping over to New Zealand and studying with Karen. And you know, I was just this moment of, oh my gosh, I love this. I really love what I’m doing here. So that was the turning point for me, I guess the signpost was then to say, Yeah, you really, you really love doing this? And that was probably the highlight if that’s a highlight, you know? Didn’t feel like a highlight at the time?

Debbie
No, I bet. Too many visits to the toilet. But did you end up going to New Zealand at all?

Jenny Moon
Oh, look, I’ve been to New Zealand on holidays. But I didn’t get to go and study because you know, then I gave up my teaching job at John Paul, I resigned from John Paul to be a mum, because I just was like I can’t juggle both. I could never see me juggling the job I had at John Paul College and being a mum.

And I just thought, you know, this is a period of my time where I’m just, I just want to do the mum thing, you know, didn’t last very long. Because I was like, Oh I’m not a stay at home mum. And you know, that’s where my family came in. Very importantly, my mother came in and kind of said, Oh, for goodness sake, let me look after Kate and go back to work and you know, do what you need to do because that’s where you’re happy. And yeah. No, I never got to do it.

Debbie
Whatever your journey was, we’re just happy because it’s brought you to where you are now.

Jenny Moon
Yeah, it took me a bit longer to get there. But I got there in the end. I haven’t got there yet. I’m still learning.

Debbie
Well, nobody ever gets there. That’s the joy of this whole life and being in education and in music. The journey is never-ending. I think if you come to terms with that, and enjoy the ride, then you’re there, aren’t you?

Jenny Moon
I totally agree. And I say to kids and audiences all the time. You know, singing is a journey. It’s something you can do until you draw your last breath. Just do it forever. Do it forever. So yeah, there’s my highlights.

Debbie
Oh, I love it. And I do love the word signposts. I think that’s very powerful. Because otherwise, I guess, highlight is making you make value judgments. But signposts that’s very powerful. Thank you. I might borrow that one.

Jenny Moon
Yes, absolutely.

What Jenny Moon is Grateful For

Debbie
All right. The next point that I like to come to is about gratitude. And I was just wondering if you had any comments about that personal, professional, people? You know, I think some of those signposts, as you’ve already mentioned, are hooked on various people. Just generally, if you were asked for what are you most grateful?

Jenny Moon
Well, you know, this year, I am most grateful for the fact that our COVID restrictions have lifted, like, I’m so grateful every day that this year, you know that things are starting to come back. And because I’m going to be honest, the last three years has been incredibly tough as you would know. If anyone said to me five years ago, you know, five years ago, we were traveling to France, to do our Anzac services and things that we had a contract with a DVA with Birralee, so, here, I was singing internationally with young people every year for five years, it was incredible.

So that whole international thing, if you’d have told me when I was doing that, five years ago, that choral singing would be shut down completely by a virus, I would have just looked at you and gone You’ve got to be kidding, you know, no one, no one imagined and it took a huge toll. And I’m so grateful that we’re back singing again, because choral singing is about community. You know, you can’t do it on a zoom; you can’t. You have to be with people.

That’s what it is. It’s community. So I’m so grateful every day that I go, yes, we’ve got concerts and I’ve got rehearsals and you know, I’m just so so grateful for that. And particularly this year, because I’m feeling like we are getting back. We’ve still got a long way to go and we’re all rebuilding. We’re all rebuilding choirs all around the world. But we’re able to actually do what we do, you know, and the opportunities are there. So I’m grateful for that.

I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve always managed to have mentors in my life who really have walked beside me. I feel really grateful for that. I’ve had great principals. My very first head of department when I was a first year teacher made an enormous impact on me. He was the head of arts, but he was drama based, you know, and he was just the most encouraging man and he was fantastic. He was incredibly talented, and he loved curriculum, but he also he loved the arts, all of the arts, music, drama dance, you know, and he just literally nurtured me in the time that I worked with him and opened up so many opportunities, you know, and I’m incredibly grateful that he was my first head of department.

I had other people, you know, Peter Ingram had just come back from working with Rodney Eichenberger and doing his masters when I met Peter, in my third year of teaching, Peter came and worked at John Paul College, and he was, you know, really instrumental in coming and saying, Come on, you need to start doing something choralliy, you know, I was playing for the school choirs because I was the accompanist, etc. But Pete was the one who probably just said, Come on, it’s time, you know, and pushed me and said, Let’s start, what do you want? What, what sort of choir do you want to do, Jen, we’ll create one for you. And we’ll create a choir, which we did, we created this female chorus, and we did you know, jazz and a whole lot of different things.

But he created a choir called female chorus so that I could start exploring. And so I was very lucky to have those people. And, you know, Julie Christiansen, in 2009, rang me and said, you know, would you be interested in coming on board as a conductor at Birralee? I was just, Oh, my goodness, yes, I would absolutely love to. And Julie has been, you know, such an important part of my journey since 2009, really, and she just opened up so many doors to her network, she’s got the most incredible network all over the world, and she is the most giving collaborative person, you know. You know, now I get to work with Paul every week.

And I have great relationships with so many composers that Julie and Paul have introduced me to, and yeah, the whole network of choral people, and having those people walk beside me, I guess. So. I think I’m just Yeah, I feel very, very blessed. And lucky that I’ve been mentored by so many people who just give, and so I really feel that now, that’s what I want to do, as well. And give as much as I can and mentor young people. Yeah, so that’s probably what I’m grateful for is people coming in my path.

And of course, my incredible family, you know, from my mum who looked after my kids, so I could travel around the world, and you know, my husband, and who just, you know, he’s a scientist, not a musician, and saying, never, you know, never said no, to the fact that I’m going to Korea for 10 days with the choir, and you’ve got to look after the kids and you know, absolutely, whatever. So my family has been really incredibly supportive of me going off and doing what I wanted to do, you know, so yeah, I think that’s my gratitude is people, people, people, people who just give, I’m very lucky, they’ve been in my life.

Debbie
And we’re very lucky they’ve been in your life so that you can now give, because oh I should have said this at the beginning that we had you to come out to our school to do a workshop day with our choirs. Very fortunate, as I’ve said, in previous episodes of the podcast, I think in fact I’ve even had a chat with Katherine Ruhle, who is our conductor. I mean, imagine working at a school where Katherine Ruhle, is your conductor. I mean, so we’re really lucky. But we’d like to be able to, and we actually did it partly because of COVID.

And when we were coming out of COVID we wanted to provide something when the competitions hadn’t started up properly. And, you know, some we thought, let’s have a workshop. We’ve had Paul Holley out, and we’ve had you out to work with all of the kids and it’s just a joy to watch you and to see you give back to the children and the conductors that are watching you, all soaking up your goodness.

So, so thank you for doing that and I know you’ve done workshops at schools for my colleagues as well, and everyone speaks very highly of you. So anyone who’s in the I don’t know how far you would travel, just ask Jenny if you want a good workshop person, contact Jenny. Okay, she’s fabulous.

Jenny Moon
I love it. I love going into those environments with, you know, new faces and you just go in and the hard work has been done really, you just kind of go and, you know, experiment. And yeah, like, I love that. I love that challenge. And I love meeting new people. I love working with conductors. And yeah it’s fun. It’s fun.

Debbie
It is. Well, it’s good. You think it’s fun, but it is a whole new set of skills, isn’t it?

Jenny Moon
Oh, for sure. For sure. It keeps you on your toes you know?

Debbie
You’ve got to be so flexible, haven’t you?

Jenny Moon
Yeah, yeah, you do have to be flexible.

Debbie
Yeah, new sea of faces, new adults that have worked with them before? What’s going to work going, you know, so you do it. So well.

Jenny Moon
So I think you’ve just got to go in with no predetermined decisions or anything you very quickly you need to go in and figure out what it is that you you’ve got to do. And yeah, and be flexible and open, you know, to anything and know that you’re not going to accomplish everything in one little amount of time or one short thing, but you just want to be engaging and hopefully give them a different way of looking at something perhaps.

Sometimes, you know, I say exactly the same things that conductors are saying to their kids, but I just say it in a different way, or they’ve heard it, and they just need one more person to say it. And you can see the look on their faces as they look at their conductor and went I think we’ve heard that before? We’ve heard that before. But ya know, it’s fun. I love it.

Jenny Moon’s Transition Out of the Classroom

Debbie
Yes. All right, I would love to talk to you briefly about how it felt. Because you’ve fairly recently stopped the teaching gig, which gives you that security of you’ve got the pay packet you’ve got the superannuation you know, yes, as much as you love the conducting, like, tell us about taking that big leap.

Jenny Moon
Yeah, it is a huge leap. Because well, it’s not only the security, like the security of, you know, your teaching salary, and your sick pay, and your long service leave, and your superannuation, all of that. That’s a massive security thing. But it’s also I guess, the security of knowing that you’re in a system. So you know, you’ve got your system of hierarchy, you’ve got your system of a timetable, it’s structured, it’s very structured.

And you know, you know that you’re going to go to school every day, and you’ve got your colleagues who are going to be able to support you, when you’re, you know, not having such a great day, or you’re trying to juggle things, and someone will jump in and say, hey, you know, I’ll take that class for you, let me take that class for you.

You’ve got all of that support in a school, and you’ve got community, you’ve got your beautiful kids and your beautiful colleagues and your beautiful parents, you’ve got this community, and it’s relational. And I’m a very relational person, that’s who I am, I will always try to make sure that that relationship with anyone is always kept intact. So in a school environment, it’s all there, isn’t it.

And so when you leave, all of a sudden, it’s not there anymore. And the ongoing relationship with the kids is what I missed the most, I still miss it. I miss that feeding into a child’s life and seeing them grow. And you know, you teach them in grade two, and then they’re in tears on their last day of school as they’re about to go and embark on missing their community. And you’ve watched them and you’ve been part of that, that’s, that’s hard to give up. So it took me a long time, Deb to be honest, it took me a long time to make the decision. And I was transitioning for quite some time. I came out of the classroom full time, quite a long time ago. And I was kind of doing a bit of teaching with, you know, some choral work at school.

Then I went part time I was very lucky that my principal at the Gold Coast allowed me to go part time and I was you know, doing some work at Birralee and doing commuting. And I was able to go off and do Shep and festivals that you know, because I had that support. So I was kind of in a transition. And it took me to lots of long service leave actually, it took me two gos before I realised no, it’s time, it’s actually time for you to to go and try and do this freelance thing. And I’m still exploring it, I’m still finding it difficult to get out of the school system and realise that oh my goodness, you know, there are so many things that you could be doing.

You’ve just got to make it happen, I guess and I’m living with that every day I still had this huge passion to use music for healing and there are so many things I want to do with that, there are so many opportunities of forming choirs and doing work with communities. through singing for healing, you know that I am yet to explore because I’m still in that. I’ve got to bring in an income. So where I can I’m doing the freelance work that I guess that pays the bills or helps to pay the bills. So I’m still in that kind of cycle of oh I’ve got to you know, I’ve got to do that. But I still have this huge realm that I can’t wait to dig into creatively and explore.

So that’s exciting. Yeah, big, big leap. Big Leap. And it’s going, it’s going well, so far, it’s going okay, so, yeah, I’m just in my, in my baby moments of it, though. So I had to do it, I had to do it, because the body was starting to, you know, tell me, if you’re going to do it, you got to do it now. Because the next 10 years, your body’s going to not let you go and do three days of workshops with groups because it’s, you know, it’s fatiguing. It’s, it’s hard on your body in and on your brain. It’s very mentally fatiguing, but it’s physically, you know, you do three whole day workshops, and my body is just like, Oh, my goodness, my hips not so good and my calves are hurting.

Debbie
Exhausting, absolutely exhausting.

Jenny Moon
It is, exhausting.

Debbie
I’ve not done as much. But I did a few years when I went to Rockhampton and did their big choral thing. And it’s like, three days, and you work all day with literally hundreds of children. And then there’d be a concert at night. I’d just say, and I was younger, then. Okay, and it was just my motel room was not far away, I’ll be back. And I just literally set an alarm and just fell on the bed and slept so that I could keep going that night. It is one of the most exhausting, like you said, it’s the mental exhaustion on top of the physical exhaustion.

Jenny Moon
Yeah, you’re on, you are on the whole time and you’re processing and you’re trying to decide what do I leave? What do I work on? You know, and all the time you just, your ears are in play? And yeah, it’s fantastic. I love it. I love the challenge. And I find it incredibly exciting. But it’s fatiguing, you know, so I just figured I had this quite short window of time where physically and mentally, I was able to still be able to keep up and keep relevant to the kids too. That’s very much on my mind is that I always want to be relevant to where they’re at.

And it has to have context for them. And so, yeah, I just thought it’s now or never I’m just gonna have to do it. I’m in a fortunate position that, you know, my husband still works and so I don’t feel quite as nervous but it is challenging. Financially it’s challenging in Australia. It’s not so challenging in the States where, you know, the choral thing works completely differently in the States. But um, yeah, I’m not I don’t regret it. I don’t regret it.

As I say, I really still miss the kids and I miss my parents and I miss community. And you know, I have my beautiful Birralee community, but it’s a lot smaller. And whilst I love my choristers, I see them but once a week. I love when we do Christmas events, you know, when we do Spirit of Christmas, and I see them all week, and you really get to know them a lot better. But that’s what I miss the most about school. Yeah.

Debbie
Well, we’re looking forward to seeing where you go making those great creative decisions. That’s exciting.

Jenny Moon
Yeah, yeah, it is exciting. Hey.

Debbie
I’m looking forward to it. You’ve got me excited now.

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time bye.

Sign-Off

This podcast is brought to you by Crescendo Music Education connecting supporting and inspiring music educators. In the show notes you’ll find links to Crescendo’s social media platforms. Please connect with me and be part of the Crescendo community. You might consider becoming a Crescendo member, for a low annual fee you can access hundreds of files worksheets, printables workbooks, repeat workshops and webinars and receive great discounts on events. So come and connect with me Debbie O’Shea. See you in the socials.

Just for Laughs

As we know laughter relieves stress. Don’t lose sight of the funny side of life.

On reading a horror story in Primal. Something bad’s about to happen. I can feel it.

Links Mentioned in the Episode:

Bigger Better Brains

Jenny’s Favorite Choral Piece – Faure Requiem

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