Mary Ellen Coates

Mary Ellen Coates, a Niwot High School Senior, is inspired by music. Asked about how she got her start in choir, Coates said she began in elementary school. While she was a member of the NHS Marching Band and played flute in the Symphonic Band, she was talked into singing in the choir by her former teacher.

Coates said, "I hadn't really considered choir because the school rules stipulated that students couldn't do both band and choir." But the choir director lobbied for Coates to participate in the choir because she was so impressed by her voice. The choir director said, "You sing more like a high school student than a middle school student." Impactful words for a kid.

After a while, Coates auditioned for Aladdin, the sixth-grade musical and was given the lead. "Students of color don't always have strong representation in musicals" Coates explained, "I looked like Jasmin and I got to play Jasmin!"

The choir director became a mentor, taking Coates under her wing. "She taught me how to use my voice," Coates began. "Through music I've learned how to convey meaning and emotion while I'm singing. "During Covid, I realized I could use my voice to lift up and connect to others."

Describing the catalyst for getting into music from a young age, Coates said, "My dad is a singer; he has a Jazz band. He really is the most amazing musician that I've ever met and he can't even read music!"

Coates described how her father got started. "He learned music, how to play the guitar and how to sing, by playing to the radio, playing by ear. He still can't read traditional sheet music." As a child, Coates described growing up in her house, "My dad and my mom would sing in and around the house every day, it was just a natural thing. It's a matter of course that I would wind up using my voice."

She used her voice so well that she won a spot in the All-State Choir last year. As Coates told it, "My choir teacher, Ms. Walters, has been preparing us for this opportunity since freshman year. I wouldn't have gotten in without the support and mentorship from my Niwot High School teachers.

The audition was rigorous. Coates said, "Sight reading was a big part of it. You have to look at a musical phrase very briefly and then have to sing it. They give you the starting note, for example, a middle C, from which you have your starting pitch. Then you only have 30 seconds to figure out the intervals and spaces between the notes before you audition the piece."

Fourteen singers from NHS auditioned and only four students were chosen. Coates said that the performances were sung in foreign languages. The All-State Choir had little time to learn how to pronounce and sing Latin, Russian and German. Explaining that a lot of choral music has Latin influences, Coates is comfortable in Latin. Russian was the most fun for her. "There was a song that we performed in Russian and it sounds so beautiful, but the translation is actually, something like, Brooms, brooms, brooms, wonderful brooms," she said laughing.

Asked how Covid impacted her high school experience, she described how the transition back to in-person learning felt. "I was at home, remote learning during the second half of my sophomore year and the first three-quarters of my junior year." She stated, "I feel more comfortable being alone now and more independent, I'm intrinsically motivated regarding my decisions. It forced me to grow."

"We just wrapped up our last musical of the school year. I feel so lucky that the musical was in the theater with a live audience. We performed the hit Broadway show, Mamma Mia."

Coates is headed to Los Angeles next year, having chosen Occidental College in Los Angeles to study Diplomacy and World Affairs. "I was very fortunate to have a lot of champions at Niwot High School who supported my academic career, my music and my voice." she said, "I fell in love with Occidental, it's the only school I looked into which has a small student body but in the big city of L.A. I'll definitely be doing choir-I cannot imagine any school experience without music."

Asked about stage fright or bouts of shyness, Coates explained, "I never experienced stage fright-not onstage." She remembered being a "pretty reserved kid. "You could always find me with my nose in a book, but I blossomed through choir and through leading the choir team this year," she said. "I wouldn't be as extroverted as I am now, it's special, having the experience of being onstage and then being a leader in front of my peers. What I would say to younger students who are just starting out in choir is, stick with it and stay in choir, because building a community within music is really wonderful."