Charleston Elementary Panther Cub Choir-Present and Past

The Panther Cub Choir was founded in the fall of 1998 when I first starting teaching at the K-12 Charleston School. I was the music teacher for K-12 and wanted to have a performing group for the younger students (we had band for the high school). With no formal choral experience, I began with a choir of around 25. Our first year we sang at one of the Charleston High School football games and the rest is history. As the years went on and Walker Valley was opened, I was a 1/2 time teacher at Charleston and Valley View Elementary, where I also started a choir. I did this for 6 years and in the last 3 years I brought both choirs together to perform a show.

When I became full time at CES, I continued the choir tradition. We had always had some choreography, but I started to focus on the show choir aspect.

In 2008, I entered our choir in the Dollywood Music Showcase festival. We had never competed anywhere and won 1st place in show choir as well as other individual awards. However, we missed overall elementary choir by two tenths of a point. This lit a fire and every year from 2009-2012, we not only were best show choir, but best overall elementary choir and won many individual awards.

In the summer of 2012, we decided to set our sights higher. My assistant director Becky Denney and I started looking at performing at Disney. We sent in our audition tape in August and was accepted by October. In the spring of 2013, the CES Panther Cub Choir along with 33 families traveled to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida to perform. We also had the pleasure of doing a Disney Workshop with Disney professionals. We repeated this trip again in 2015 (with immediate acceptance this time!) and plan to go again in 2017. Performing on a Disney stage is truly a magical experience!

One non-musical focus of our choir is to build leaders. We have choir jobs and students have to go through interviews just like the real world. These students leaders help Mrs. Denney and I with tasks that make our choir more efficient. Our choir members must be good citizens to each other and when we are out in public. When we go on our choir tour, everyone always comments on how polite, well behaved and considerate our students are. It's because that is an expectation. We do a choir tour every December to sing for local school/business partners, assisted living homes, seniors at the senior center and the hospital (to name a few places!) We also make a stop by Channel 3 News Share Your Christmas and make either a monetary or food donation and sing a few songs. We want our students to know the importance of giving back to the community that gives so much to them.

I have enjoyed the last 18 years directing this choir. We have evolved from a choir of 20-25 to a choir of 45-55 each year. It's such a good feeling to be able to spark that love of singing and music at a young age! Many of my former students have went on to sing in middle school, high school and beyond. They've had lead roles in musicals, tried out for American Idol and even have recording contracts. I'm so blessed to have been able to plant that seed for so many.

Amanda Szidiropulosz
Panther Cub Choir Director
1998-present