The primary objective of the Choral Music Program at KCKCC is to educate the students and the community about vocal ensemble music through stylistic variety and tonal diversity, based on historical precedent. This objective is achieved by exposing choir members to music of different nationalities and/or cultures and their commitment to recreate a unique tone quality that identifies with the cultural environment of each composition.
 
The KCKCC Vocal Jazz Program takes pride in performing professional-level vocal jazz ensemble literature. The music within today’s program represents a crossover of the jazz and popular music idioms. The students in the Vocal Jazz program learn Jazz Education through a variety of methods. First of all, several of the students take private vocal jazz coachings 
weekly. They also perform music by professional vocal ensembles, arrangements by well-known vocal jazz educators, and learn jazz and popular music standards (both through the ensemble and within the private coachings). Lastly, 2/3 of the vocalists in our program are on full-tuition vocal music scholarship from the college (where they can be any major, but must participate in choir and applied voice). 

Director BIO:
John Stafford II is currently the Director of Choral Music Activities at Kansas City Kansas Community College. He was previously appointed at Millikin Univiersity and Eastern Illinois University teaching music composition, theory and orchestration. He holds degrees from Millikin University, Bowling Green State University, and is completing a doctorate from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Among his professional activities, Professor Stafford serves as the Jazz and Show Choir Chair of the Kansas Choral Directors Association; he is also a member of National Association for Music Educators, Jazz Educators Network, and American Choral Directors Association. Also, Stafford was just appointed in August 2014 as the Director of Music at Community Christian Church in Kansas City, MO.

The Standard, is the award-winning contemporary vocal jazz ensemble from Kansas City Kansas Community College. They have recently been invited performed at the national conferences of the Jazz Education Network, the American Choral Directors Association, and the National Association for Music Education. The Standard has also been selected to perform at the Kansas Music Educators Association In-Service Workshop, the New York Voices Jazz Festival, the Real Group Festival, the New York City Jazz Festival at Jazz at the Lincoln Center and has received a number #1 rating at the University of Northern Colorado/Greeley Jazz Festival. Within the last three years, members of the The Standard have won seven Downbeat Magazine Student Music Awards for Outstanding Performance, Live Engineered Recording, Studio Engineered Recording, and Outstanding Soloist in the Community College category. The group has shared the stage with such highly acclaimed artists as Take 6, The New York Voices, m-pact, Carmen Bradford, Dianne Reeves and Marilyn Maye. In December of 2018, The Standard released their first studio recording, Feelin’ Good, and the album has been played on radio stations in over a half dozen states throughout the Midwest. In Spring 2020, The Standard will digitally release their first single recording of Justin Binek’s composition, Reparations, and in Spring 2021, the ensemble will release their second studio album.

Conductor Brian Schkeeper thrives working with a wide variety of repertoire. From Renaissance to 21st Century works, Brian is at home inspiring singers to create music that is meaningful and life-changing. Brian is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Choral Collective, a professional chamber choir and large professional/volunteer symphonic choir that strives to create a vibrant community through choral and vocal music. Former Assistant Conductor of The Philadelphia Singers, Brian has programmed and conducted the Singers as well as preparing The Philadelphia Singers Chorale for performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra. Brian also founded The American Choral Scholars and has performed numerous lesser-known works by celebrated composers. Brian has studied with master teachers Joseph Flummerfelt, Dale Warland, Robert Page, Weston Noble, Robert Porco, Jon Nelson, Andrew Megill, and Stephan Parkman. 



I'm a musician, semi-retired organist, pianist. I use to teach kids and adults on the following instruments: Piano, Keyboard, Electronic Organ.

Jeffrey Freuler, a native of Fairview Heights, IL, is a member of the famed St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys under the direction of John Scott. Jeffrey earned his Master’s degree in voice at Westminster Choir College, training as a countertenor in the voice studio of Thomas Faracco. While at Westminster Choir College, Jeffrey was a member of the critically acclaimed Westminster Choir under the direction of Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt. As a member of the Westminster Choir, he performed frequently with orchestras across the United States, including the New York Philharmonic and traveled to Charleston, SC to perform at the Spoleto Festival, USA. 
Mr. Freuler frequently performs with ensembles throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania, most notably among them are Fuma Sacra and the Masterwork Chorus of NJ, both under the direction of Dr. Andrew Megill, chorus master of the Montreal Symphony and conductor of the Carmel Bach Festival Chorale. With the Voices Chorale of New Jersey, he debuted as a countertenor in the role of David in Handel’s oratorio Saul in which he was praised as possessing “…a voice more richly colored than many other countertenors” by Classical New Jersey Society. In recent seasons, he has performed the title role of Solomon with the Franconia-Lancaster Choral Singers, the Sts. Matthew and John Passion with the Westminster Kantorei and Fuma Sacra. In 2012, Jeffrey toured Germany and Denmark with the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. In the 2013, Jeffrey was the alto soloist in a performance of Cantata BWV 115 “Mach dich mein Geist bereit” on the popular “Bach on Thursdays” series in Princeton, NJ. He made his debut with The Polyphony Voices of New Mexico and The New Mexico Philharmonic in Bach’s St. John Passion where Jeffrey was reviewed by the Albuquerque Journal as giving an admirable account of the two alto arias, especially the emotional centerpiece of the work "Es ist vollbracht!" Jeffrey sang Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb with the Masterwork Chorus of NJ and the Cäcilien-Chor Frankfurt. Concluding the 2013 season, Jeffrey will perform Heinrich Schütz Musikalische Exequien with Fuma Sacra. 
In 2014 St. Thomas Choir concert series, Jeffrey sang with the famed viol consort Fretwork and with Richard Egarr and Juilliard415 in a performance of Purcell's Ode to St. Cecilia's Day and concluding the season, Mr. Freuler was the alto soloist in a performance of the Bach Easter Oratorio with the St. Thomas Choir and Concert Royal under John Scott. 

Philadelphia mezzo-soprano + traveler + dreamer
✨ sang on 3 GRAMMY® winning albums
✨ member of Trio Eos and The Crossing

Followers of bschkeeper