Pam Granger & Penny Schiek to retire

Swan songs for powerhouse choral teachers of Glens Falls & Queensbury

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Chorus teachers Penny Schiek and Pam Granger both retire at the end of this year.

Between them, they have taught for more than 65 years, Ms. Schiek most recently for 18 years at Queensbury High School and Mrs. Granger for 23 years at Glens Falls High.

Besides regular classes in general music, chorus and voice, the two are the directors of signature school music groups that perform in the outside community.

Ms. Schiek leads the Queensbury Madrigal Singers, a select chorus that performs a mix of classical repertoire and choral versions of popular songs, traditional music and standards.

Mrs. Granger is director of the Glens Falls High School Octet, a select show-choir that combines theatrical dance moves and music from Broadway musicals to American Songbook standards. Mrs. Granger also directs the high school’s Drama Club musical, mounted every other year.

It’s similar to when the teacher who is also the football or track coach retires: The reverberations extend beyond the classroom into the community.

“Especially in the arts, your work is much more in the community,” Ms. Schiek says of the music teacher’s role. “Our product goes in front of the public several times a year.”

“We’re like ambassadors for the school,” Mrs. Granger agrees.

When a reporter suggests, “That’s a huge loss for the community,” Ms. Schiek is quick to counter, “I consider it a gain. You’re not losing us from the community but you are going to gain what I expect will be two new wonderful musicians.”

Two career paths land here

Ms. Schiek grew up in Penn Yan, where she also had her first teaching job. She taught 13 years in Whitehall before coming down to Queensbury. In Whitehall she also taught instrumental music — and an occasional photography class. She was a double major in vocal music and photography.

Mrs. Granger grew up in Newburgh and had her first teaching job in Minerva, where she covered all music classes, K to 12. She taught at St. Mary’s Academy then St. Mary’s-St. Alphonsus, here in Glens Falls, in two three-year stints when she was a young mother, before she took the job at Glens Falls.

A ballet dancer, classically trained pianist and singer, Mrs. Granger says it was in her junior year of college, when she sang and danced in a production of Carousel, that she discovered musical theater.

“It was a revelation for me,” she says. The Glens Falls job, which happened to include a show choir, was a good fit, then. In her years at the school, she’s expanded the movement and “show” side of the equation.

She also took on and greatly expanded the Glens Falls High School musical. “But I am fiercely a control person,” who runs every aspect of the show from musical direction to costuming (with much parental help, she adds) and I’d be dead if I did it every year.”

65 years teaching between the two

This was an off-year for the musical, it turns out. Mrs. Granger said she has offered, if no one else steps forward, to direct the show next year if needed.

Ms. Schiek is a soloist who continues to perform on occasion with local groups. She also directs the Adirondack Voices community chorus in Glens Falls and the Hand Bell Choir at Christ Church United Methodist.

She was always oriented more toward the classical repertoire, she says, a best match for the Madrigals. The group was founded at Queensbury by her predecessor, Ned Crislip.

Madrigals is “a huge commitment,” Ms. Schiek adds, with rehearsals three days a week before school and another day after school, in addition to a full schedule of outside performances, and a European tour every other year during Holiday Break.

Her students performed with the Glens Falls Symphony and Adirondack Voices for last week’s monumental Belshazzar’s Feast concert (as did some of Ms. Granger’s Octet members). They have previously combined with the Adirondack Voices for big performances including Verdi’s Requiem two years ago.

“It’s time for a younger person to take that on,” she says.

She’ll step back some from Adirondack Voices next year, also — taking a break for the fall season and with plans to direct just the spring concert.

For her part, Mrs. Granger said she may get more involved with community theater again.

Their perspectives, looking back

“Kids are still kids,” they say, but the job has changed “a lot” in their years, especially with technology and the ability to download music for students, for example.

“Students have more activities now. It’s harder for them to balance time.”

“High school is an experimental time,” Ms. Schiek says. “You try to give them experiences that are quality.”

They also get to hear more often from former students through social media.

Mrs. Granger says, “I love to see, kids who might not have hung out otherwise were in Octet together and they’re still congratulating each other on babies or sharing inside jokes.”

“Music is a common denominator,” Ms. Schiek says. “You may not have known, then a student tells you, ‘Your class was the only reason I came to school in the morning.”

The two are clearly longtime friends as well as colleagues, laughing together over the next stage of their lives — “When I get out…,” one says, only to be corrected by the other: “Better not say get out, it’s not jail.”

Both say they aim to give private vocal lessons after retirement, and both plan to travel — Ms. Schiek back on her motorcycle after recovering from a serious crash last summer.

Advice to new teachers?

“I learned how to whistle,” Mrs. Granger said, to get their attention when directing “a cast of thousands” in the school musical. “Don’t demonstrate the bass and tenor parts. It will ruin your voice.”

“Enjoy your students,” Ms. Schiek says. “You will learn a lot from them. They are the great teachers of teachers.”

Mrs. Granger agrees, “That human connection: I told my principal, I work from my heart. It makes everything better, every piece of music. Let yourself go there. That’s what lasts.”

2 farewell concerts

Final spring concerts for Ms. Schiek and Ms. Granger are both this week.

• Penny Schiek directs the Queensbury High School Mixed Chorus, Concert Choir and Madrigals concert on Monday, May 23, at 8 p.m. in the high school auditorium.
• Pam Granger directs The Glens Falls High School Chorus and Octet concert on Tuesday, May 24, at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium.

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