"Music All Choir Kids Should Know"

I am a HS Choral teacher, and each year I spend a week playing choral music "every choir kid should know". I make 4 lists of 10 songs (so, in essence, I can repeat it ever four years and a kid who stays with me all four years won't hear the same song twice).

Each list of 10 includes at least one renaissance, baroque, classical, post-classical, 20th Century, a spiritual, and at least two contemporary compositions (including collegiate a cappella to remind them singing post graduation takes MANY forms).

I'll be honest, I DO have an agenda. I want something that has a strong HOOK that is easy to buy into as a teenager. Not all of them, mind you, but it sure helps stoke their interest. I'm looking to expand some of my lists and replace some pieces with more diversity. What do you think? I'm sure there are tons of pieces I'm not even thinking of that would fit the bill.

My current list of chestnuts are;

  • Now Is the Month Of Maying
  • Fair Phyllis
  • Sicut Cervus (Palestrina)
  • Sing We And Chant It
  • Gloria (Vivaldi)
  • Gloria (Bach B minor mass)
  • Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
  • Sing Unto God (Handel)
  • Zadok the Priest
  • Lacymosa, Rex Tremende, Confutatis from Mozart Requiem
  • Ode to Joy
  • Anvil Chorus
  • O Fortuna
  • Mvt 1 from Symphony of Psalms
  • Ubi Caritas (Durufle)
  • Mvt 1 Gloria (Rutter)
  • Mvt 1 Chichester Psalms
  • Alleluia and Last Words of David (R. Thompson)
  • Sleep & Boy and a Girl (Whitacre)
  • Sure on this Shining Night (Lauridsen)
  • Battle of Jericho & Elijah Rock

(I left off the contemporary a cappella numbers, they are interchangable and I pick to fit the current time period)