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myBurbank Talks
Local Legends with Devin - Brendan Jennings
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Brendan Jennings is a John Burroughs High School Vocal Music Association alumnus who graduated from the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music before taking on the position of vocal music director at Burroughs.
Jennings chats with us about his career beginnings, how he has maintained a prestigious music program, the JBHS VMA's connection to the hit series "Glee," and more.
To learn more about the John Burroughs High School Vocal Music Association, visit its site, https://jbhsvma.com/, or follow on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok @jbhsvma, and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jbhsvma/.
This episode of "Local Legends with Devin" is sponsored by Plumbing Dudes, a local, family-owned business that offers superior plumbing services to Burbank and its neighboring areas.
From deep in the Burbank Media District. It's time for another edition of my Burbank Talks. This podcast is presented by the staff of my Burbank. Now let's see what's on today's agenda as we join our program.
Speaker 2Hello everyone, this is Devin Horrenda and you're listening to another episode of Local Legends with Devin, a segment exploring the journeys of people from all walks of life who have ties to the city of Burbank. Our guest today is the vocal music director of John Burroughs High School, Brendan Jennings. The John Burroughs High School Vocal Music Association is known as one of the best public school music programs nationally, and under Brendan's leadership, the program consists of four curricular choirs, three extracurricular ensembles and a tech theater program. Brendan is also a John Burroughs High School alumnus and he participated in the Burroughs Music Program as a student before going on to serve as vocal music director. Brendan, welcome, how are you doing?
Speaker 3I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 2Oh, I good, Thank you. Thank you for joining me. Well, to begin with, before we get into Burroughs, I'd like to talk about what started your interest in performing, so what sparked your love for musical theater and choir?
Speaker 3Well, I started at a super young age. My mom is a preschool teacher for many years at the preschool at the Burbank First United Methodist Church and they had a children's choir program there and that's kind of where I got my start. I think she even talked to me a year early, so I was like pre-kindergarten or something and joined the children's choir and she could just tell how much I loved it and it was a really, you know, it's a great program. So I came up through those children's choirs and band-bell groups at the church and then that kind of was a natural lead into the music programs in Burbank Unified School District. So I was in choir at John Muir Middle School and then choir at John Burroughs High School.
Speaker 3And then you know that I mean John Burroughs really changed my life, like developed a passion for all kinds of music, but you know, musical theater, especially classical music. And then when I was applying to colleges, I still had like this dream of, you know, being the CEO of Disney or something one day, like applying to half-business schools and half-music schools and I ended up choosing USC because it had great music and great business, just in case I changed my mind and so I ended up going to USC as a vocal performance major and I kind of never looked back. I ended up in music education and my predecessor at Burroughs, mary Rago, hired me back while I was in college, so it became like a side job for me helping out at Burroughs, and then when I graduated, she said it's time for me to retire and I ended up taking over the programs. The rest is history.
Speaker 2So, while you were at USC and assisting at Burroughs, what was that experience like? How did learning from Mary Rago prepare you to next leave the program at Burroughs?
Speaker 3I mean, I learned a lot. My first job at Burroughs was directing and choreographing the after-school men's choir, and so these were students that I was like one, two years older than at the time and who were, you know, guys that I had been at school with, and all of a sudden I'm in charge of running rehearsals, and so that was a real crash course in classroom management. I would go to my voice lessons at USC and my teacher was like, what are you doing with your voice? Your voice is thrashing. I'm like, well, I'm just screaming at a bunch of high school kids.
Speaker 3So I quickly learned that you know, screaming at high school kids is not the way to go and kind of developed my own style. But I mean, mary ran a great program and I just learned a lot from her in terms of musicality. She's a really great conductor, she's one of my conducting idols, and so I just I kind of added all of those inputs together, my studies at USC. I was really involved in the acapella group scene at USC, started a group there and learned a lot doing that and you know, kind of put all the pieces together and, you know, develop my own style, I think, and there I am.
Speaker 2Yeah, another thing I thought was interesting that I've heard you say in the past is during that time prior to Mary announcing her retirement, you took a job as a real estate brokers assistant, just in the interim before becoming vocal music director. So I wonder, with that role, what did that teach you or how did it reinforce you? That teaching would be the right path.
Speaker 3Yeah, that was that was an interesting year. When she was retiring, she kind of did it secretly and she gave one year notice to myself and Jen and Jen who's the artistic director of the program, and so you know that was that was a great year of learning for me because then I was kind of committing to, you know, applying for that job in a year, and so I was able to, like, really pay attention closely to things in the program. But also I needed a job because I was finished with school and I needed to start paying loan back. So, yeah, I took a job as a real estate agent, a brokers assistant, and it was. It was an interesting experience.
Speaker 3I think it was good because I needed a break at that moment from being in the educational system 100% and it gave me a chance to flex, you know, my business brain, my money brain a little bit and see how that world is put together and at the same time it reinforced that. That felt like a job. That felt like, you know, something that I was doing to earn money and that I could do. But it wasn't my passion and that's that was kind of the big takeaway that you know, if you love your job. You never work a day in your life, as they say, and I didn't love that job, but I became more and more certain that teaching music was where I should be, and I really feel like I got my dream job at you know, 24 years old, and have been enjoying it ever since.
Speaker 2So then, once you did take over as vocal music director, what was that transition period like, when you actually stepped into the role?
Speaker 3Well, it was on one hand well curated.
Speaker 3Because Mary knew she was retiring, she knew she wanted me to take over. So, like she had had me help plan the calendar we create, I created burrows on Broadway, sort of in secret, like we just put this mystery show on the calendar, and I ended up doing it my first year of teaching that person, never done before, and so everybody was kind of like lined up to help me and make the transition smooth. But at the same time the way the process work I mean by the time she got all of her things together and went to the district office or retired I didn't then you know, then they have to post the job and they have to do the interviews for the job. By the time I got hired it was like the Friday before Teachers went back.
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Speaker 3So I was. I was kind of like planning to have a job, but not 100% sure I had a job, and so that part was very stressful and I kind of felt like my first year, probably two years. Honestly, I oftentimes say that I kind of blacked out my first two years because, as much as you think you know what it takes, I had no idea what it takes to to be a successful teacher and I think you know most days I was probably there until nine or 10pm and so I was working these insane, you know, 7am to 10pm every day, and it was just because I had to figure out what I was doing. I mean, I just didn't know all the things that I didn't know. So my first two years were a lot of hard work because I felt a huge responsibility to keep the program at the level that it was at already and I didn't want to fall apart because of me, because Mary was a legend and the program was great when I took over.
Speaker 3So that was. That was a stressful transition. But I also had a great group of seniors, the senior class of 2007. My first year was they just like, really took care of me and protected me and, you know, kept the kids organized and kept things moving forward when I was like floundering, so it all ended up working out and we had, you know, we had a great year and that that started, you know, a really good era for the program and and we just kind of built from there and once I, once I became comfortable in the job, then I felt like, you know, we could start growing and adding more things and, you know, doing more.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's great. I think we're just going to take a brief pause and then we're going to talk more Bros, VMA in just a sec.
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Speaker 2Okay, so we're back now and, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, brendan, with John Burroughs High School, vma, there are four curricular choirs and three extracurricular ensembles as well. Can you go through those just a little bit for me, all of those, brendan?
Speaker 3Sure. So we have the four curricular choirs. We have our intermediate treble group, which is called decibels, and then our intermediate mixed choir is called sound waves. We have an advanced treble choir called sound sensations, and then we have our advanced mixed choir called powerhouse. And those, those are the classes that I teach every day. Powerhouse has a double period. They start zero, nice and early at 730 now, not 7am Time change up high school. And then after school we have two acapella groups, two contemporary acapella groups, a treble group called muses and a mixed group called neochromatics. And then we have the after school men's choire that I use to direct and choreograph and I do not anymore. The after school groups have have coaches who directed them, so the men's group is now directed by Dominic Matos and Dan Skilvill. I just get to enjoy, enjoy from the audience.
Speaker 2Well, between the ensembles, how many total students are there generally in the music program?
Speaker 3We're right around 200. For next year it's been as big as like 220 and then obviously during the pandemic we had, our numbers were falling a little bit. So I think we're down to like 150. But we're pretty much back to our normal. Average is about 200 music students.
Speaker 2And how many kids will audition about how many each year?
Speaker 3I mean just a little over 200. We were not in the business of turning people away generally. You know, every so often there there's, there's a student who you know really physically can't match pitch or that you know doesn't have the skill that we need. It's. It's kind of tricky because we don't exactly have a beginning fire, because the middle school feeder programs are so strong the students that come to me are just not really beginning students and so it can be tricky. When a student comes in from somewhere, hasn't been in choir and middle school or doesn't have any experience, we can usually, you know, work with that student to get them up to speed. But every so often there's, you know, somebody who I just don't think is going to be able to keep up with the pace. But more often than not the students that aren't taken into the aren't taken into choir are for either academic reasons or discipline reasons, because we expect high level behavior and, you know, good academics from all of our students, because the music program is privilege.
Speaker 3Right privilege to be in. You know, as we say, everybody's got to keep their grades up.
Speaker 2For students who are interested in joining the music program for the first time. What do you say to them in terms of what to expect or how to prepare?
Speaker 3Well, I usually try to remind them that they don't have to be perfect at everything, because, you know, if you come to a show and you see Powerhouse on stage, you know, or just see the level that some of the upperclassmen are at, it can be super intimidating. And I'm, you know, I'm like this is, this is what my job is. I'm here to teach you. You don't have to be perfect at everything, you just, you know, you need to have a love for music, you need to prepare a song. That's kind of the main thing. Our additions include an acapella song 32 bars like 60 to 90 seconds. So just a short excerpt Choose any song you feel like shows your voice off, and so really work on that, really know that, feel comfortable with that, because auditioning is the most nerve wracking part of being in choir. Once you get over that hump, the rest of it is a lot more fun and less scary. But you have to. You have to stand in front of, you know, a panel and sing by yourself acapella, and that can be super scary. And then, in terms of the dancing, I mean I do.
Speaker 3Obviously, we, we, we are a show choir. We do all kinds of music. We do several classical concerts and a musical theater show, but there is singing and dancing involved and so that that can be the intimidating factor for some kids, you know some of them feel really comfortable singing and are super nervous dancing. Or, you know, comfortable in their bodies, especially coming nine graders, you know, coming out of that middle school era, and we just, you know, we try to like, we try to hold their hands, we, we, when we're working with the middle schoolers, we bring some of our upperclassmen, you know, to kind of help, coach and talk them through it.
Speaker 3You know, watch out, I have them, you know, be careful, watch out for the kids that are in the back who are might, you know, bolt at any moment and because they're scared of dancing and we just kind of like, just, it's really about the effort more than it is about the perfection, like you just have to be willing to try and throw yourself in, because we have excellent choreographers who work with our groups and who do training and you know, at the beginning of the year we're doing dance boot camps and they're they're learning all the fundamentals and so most of the time you don't have to be an incredible dancer to start. You know, I wasn't when I started. You know, and you just you learn and that's that's kind of the growth, the growth arc. We we try to explain but yeah, it's auditioning is scary.
Speaker 2And each year together you present four big shows. You have grows on Broadway, holiday spectacular, your pop show and then spring concert. The shows are amazing. I know everyone in the community looks forward to them. I can imagine a whole lot goes into them. What is the preparation process like for you, the students and the whole creative team for the shows?
Speaker 3Well we're, since we're mid summer right now, we are in the heat of the creative team process, planning all of the shows for next year, everything from, you know, deciding themes to picking songs, finding arrangements and sheet music. We're kind of doing all of that right now for the entire year and then, you know once, once the school year starts, we sort of have we have an established pace. I mean, we start the year very much working on technique training. We bring in the classical music first. I want the kids to develop, you know, good vocal technique, and then we kind of transition into working on the Broadway shows, which, which is good because it can be. It's kind of usually the easier in terms of the difficulty level of the arrangements and the choreography.
Burroughs' Connection to Glee and Oprah Performance
Speaker 3So it's a good first show for us, for us on Broadway in October, and then we have our, you know, we do a classical concert in November. We can kind of polish off those pieces while we're starting to work on the holiday program. The holiday program in December is a real quick. It happened so fast. We're at the end of the first semester, big collaboration at the school between the instrumental and the dance and the vocal programs. So that's really fun just getting to do a lot of collaborations and then we start, you know, show choir in the spring. So we're hoping to take all of the skills that we've built through the first semester and put them into kind of like the most innovative high level, you know, boundary pushing material that we've been designing you know, since May, june of the previous year, we put all of that on stage and we premiere those shows at our pop show, which is late February, and then that puts us into competition season.
Speaker 3We're competing. Throughout March and April we host a competition, at Burroughs as well, called Music Showcase, which is a gigantic event. And then, before you know it, it's the last month of school and it's May, and you know, we do one more classical concert, spring concert, first half classical and then the second half is like a farewell to the competition shows. And you know, before we know it, we're on summer vacation and the whole process starts over again.
Speaker 2And another subject I wanted to get into a little bit was Glee. So Glee started in 09, went until 2015,. But it's been pretty well documented that the music program at Burroughs was one source of inspiration for Ryan Murphy when he co-created Glee so Choir. I feel like is still appreciated so much today, but at that time it really felt like it was just becoming really big and popping up a lot in mainstream pop culture with projects like Glee. Can you tell me about Burroughs' connection to Glee and your most memorable experiences from that time?
Speaker 3Sure, but actually started. The first I heard of Glee was when the front office at Burroughs I think called me on a Friday and said there's a TV show that is shooting a pilot and they're going to use your classroom and so you know, can you make sure to like put away your stuff extra this weekend and lock things up? And they're like it's a show, it's like kind of about what you do. It's like about Glee clubs or something. And I was just like show the TV show about Glee clubs that'll never be popular. And so I did, you know, kind of put things away.
Speaker 3And then I come back Monday morning and honestly it was total mayhem. There was like there was like furniture and stuff like just sitting out on the streets that had been left there that they'd taken out of my room. I went in and the piano was didn't play because they had opened the piano up and put dampening cloth between the hammers and the keys so that you could play it silently for camera. But they didn't take it out. So I like couldn't teach any of my classes. So I'm like calling the front office furious, like you tell this production company to get back here and fix this stuff. And they left my stuff everywhere and blah, blah, blah and I was just kind of like, yes, but they came back and they kind of rectified everything and I think the production company that did the pilot wasn't the one that ended up like continuing with the show.
Speaker 3But yeah, it premiered later and I thought that the show was like about, like you know, like college Glee clubs like stand and sing choirs I didn't realize that that name was their version of show choir, you know and so they started, you know, they started premiering the show and it premieres and it's a huge hit and you know, you watch the, watch the pilot and you can see my classroom and then shortly after they recreate my room on set somewhere. So, and it felt like, too, watching the early episodes, like the, and they did shoot more things here and there at school, but they also recreated some of the hallways at Burroughs and it was like they contacted the construction company and got like the exact floor and the exact wall, like it just looks so much like our school in some of in some of the areas of the of the show not not the theater, ever.
Speaker 3That was like a. They shot that at a different school but just like the hallways in the classrooms and stuff really felt like burroughs. So you know it was a, it was a connection right from the start. And then I think one of the biggest things was that the production or the cast of Glee was going on the Oprah Winfrey show Like after the premiere. After you know they were. They were big hit and the Oprah Winfrey show wanted to have a real show choir.
Speaker 3And so Oprah Winfrey show contacted one of the one of the competitions, one of the like companies that runs now, and asked them for a list of 10 top 10 choirs in the country. We were on that list from that company and they sent us all messages saying would you please submit your 2009, 2010, the year after premiere show choir shows like a video. We're looking for a number to be on the Oprah Winfrey show and so I'm assuming all these choirs kind of submit their videos, we submit our video and I end up getting a call from producers and they said, hey, so we got everybody's videos, but the number that we want on the show is actually the number from a number from your 2009 show that we've been using as a placeholder for our run of show this whole time, and we didn't like any of the videos as much as we like this one song from your show last year. And you recreate it for us for the Oprah Winfrey show, and of course you don't say no to Oprah. So we said, of course we can, even though we didn't have all the costumes anymore, because the kids take their costumes with them and they graduated. And we asked can we bring last year's kids back? And they said, no, they need to be current high school kids. So we're like, ok, we can teach the number to the new kids, we can call the seniors from last year and get them to let us borrow their costumes. And it was a whole thing, and so we ended up doing it.
Speaker 3We went on the Oprah show and that was kind of like the big boom of like oh, this is the real life lead like John Burroughs and like the cast members came to the school to surprise the kids telling them that they were going on the Oprah Winfrey show, and so the cast members got to meet the kids and then it became a connection and all of a sudden we're doing like box, like premieres, like we're performing for like their season two premiere. They're performing for like glee related events all over Los Angeles and we got to meet the cast a bunch of different times in a bunch of different places and they kind of like considered us their real life school and we got some fantastic opportunities because of it. So it was a real interesting era. It was a very busy era because we continued to do all of our regular calendar, but we were also throwing you know crazy gigs on top of things. We went to Hong Kong, we went to Beijing to perform. Like you know, it was wild. It was wild Shokwire, definitely real hot for a bit.
Speaker 2That's awesome. The performance on Oprah was amazing. That's so funny it played out that way. Have you guys made it work?
Speaker 3And well, and they didn't let us tell the kids because they wanted to do that surprise with the cast, and it was getting later and later and later. By the time they actually filmed that surprise, it was like under two weeks. And, yes, the kids who had been in the group the year before knew the number, but like half the kids didn't know the number, and so we were like really pressuring the producers like we have to tell the kids, like we need time to learn this number. But, yeah, it worked out. The kids rose to the occasion.
Speaker 2It worked out.
Speaker 3And just like, had a last minute trip to Chicago, which is just. You know they could have easily. There's a number of really great groups who are in the Midwest and they could have easily, like, put a group on a bus and had them go to the studio in Chicago, but they chose to blow out, fly out tire choir from Birmingham, California, to Chicago. So we were very grateful to be considered.
Speaker 2Under your leadership the program has continued to do so well and with over a dozen national championships, you all have really set the standard for show choir. So, with your program at Burroughs leading the way, how have you seen show choir evolve over the years and where do you maybe see it going in the years ahead?
Evolution of Show Choir
Speaker 3Yeah, there's actually a book coming out that kind of details this whole transformation and how Powerhouse specifically has kind of pushed the genre forward. But a dear friend of the program who's also a such a photographer his name is Hawkeard is doing like a 10 year, releasing a 10 year sort of retrospective of his photography of our shows. But in the book he like talks about the story and really a lot of it comes down to our artistic director, jen Inje. She's the creative mind behind the Powerhouse shows for the last long time, many, many years. And once I took over because I remember when I was an assistant in the program I remember her kind of trying to push ideas and Mary Rago being very resistant sometimes to like these new things, trying new things, and I was like the mediator of the team, trying to get everybody on the same page. And when I took over I was kind of like let's do it, let's do the wild thing, the risky thing designing shows that may or may not do well competitively, going to competitions and not worrying about whether or not you're winning, but really worrying about the artistic integrity of what you're putting on stage was a big thing.
Speaker 3But yeah, I mean Jen just really she had a vision and it was a lot more theatrical. She acquired what used to be big hair, sparkly dress and five songs that had nothing to do with each other, just kind of glitz and glam. That's what it was. That's what a lot of people still kind of think it is. But Jen wanted to do more. She wanted to tell a story, she wanted to evoke emotion and so back in even 2007, 2008, 2009, my first three years, she was really pushing the boundaries of theming shows after global warming and a Depression era, circus, and then the famous show that got us on Oprah, the who Made Up All the Rules, which was kind of like a Victorian era. I don't even know how to describe that show, but she just kind of took Show Choir to different places and time periods and because we started to do so well, we were becoming something else and the quality of it was undeniable.
Speaker 3We were winning big competitions and people started to notice like, and it's the natural, the natural heavenflow of the world is, whoever is successful, then people will try to copy that success. And so the Show Choir world has kind of pushed in that direction. Now there's a lot of really interesting shows and a lot of really artistic. Just costuming that matches the music you're doing was kind of Jen's first radical idea.
Speaker 3We used to like just wear a sparkly dress and Jen is like if you're gonna wear a sequined dress, maybe that fits for like putting on the rips, but if you wanna do like hip hop music, what sense does that make?
Speaker 3And there were still people wearing a sequined dress and heels and like trying to do hip hop and it just didn't make any sense. And so matching the costuming, the music, having the lyrics of the music, means something in a story so that the performers can connect to it emotionally and then that will bring the audience in. And so we've done a lot of incredible shows over the years and we've been lucky enough to be very recognized for it. But we've also had years where the judges didn't get what we were doing and we didn't do well competitively, and those are some of our favorite shows. Those are some of the shows that push things forward the most. So you gotta kind of just follow your heart and let the art speak and don't worry about winning and losing, and in the end that's the best lesson for the kids. Artistic integrity above all.
Speaker 2Absolutely With your time, first starting off being in the music program as a student and now, of course, being vocal music director. Looking back on your years so far with boroughs, what stands out to you? What memories or accomplishments are some of the most memorable?
Speaker 3Well, as a student, I really remember our national competition when I was a freshman. It was that we was hosted at Disneyland and there were there were choirs from all over the country. You know one in particular that we saw were like jaw dropped and we never thought that we could beat. And so when we won that competition, it was the first time that Burroughs had won a national competition when I was a freshman in high school and that was that was kind of one of. I think that was Jen's.
Speaker 3My freshman year of high school was Jen's fourth show with Burroughs. So she was actually my teacher and her, her artistry had kind of started to show and that's why we won. We won because of our, you know, because of our vocal quality and the complication of the music that we were singing, but also because of Jen's artistry. And I will never forget, you know, the Mickey Mouse confetti that they shot into the air, just like the feeling like it was. It was one of those moments that really gives you hooked, and so I think that was that was a night where I, like, was really really hooked in winning that first national competition and then, you know, as a teacher there have been, there have been many, many incredible moments. I mean going on the Oprah show was definitely one of them. You know, my very first, my very first national competition, my first year of teaching We've gone to Orlando, florida, and when we won that competition it was, you know, like the moment that I realized that I didn't run the program kind of thing, you know, and I was like very grateful to everybody around me who, like, propped, propped up my success.
Speaker 3We had, we had a huge national win 2013. It was sort of like a champion of champions kind of competition and that was a, that was an undefeated season for us, which is incredibly difficult to do. Southern California has, I would say, like three of the top 10 show choirs in the country. All are here, and so we go to competitions every weekend, just local things at one high school or another, and it's like a nationals every weekend at the top division, because you know you have these incredible schools and so it's very hard to have it, not to feed the season.
Speaker 3So that was, that was kind of a big deal and I don't know, after after a while it kind of is like it's it's not. It's not the championships that you remember, it's it's like it's the warm up rooms. It's the moments where the kids lock in, when, when they totally, when they totally get it, or when, you know, when we were in the warm up room of our last competition of the year and it was at the Sandy convention center, we were doing Katy Perry firework and I remember the parents had secretly put together to have actual pyrotechnics on stage because it was at the convention center and they like raise the money and, you know, spend the money to have a fire marshal and go in the day before and like hang actual, like sparklers and flash pops and stuff for their show.
Speaker 3I just remember getting to tell the kids about it like five minutes before they went on stage and just the like, sheer excitement of the kids and then the energy that that like put into the show. That was just beyond. So there's, I don't know, every. Every year has magical moments. You know this. This this past year there there were many, and so I just try to live in the moment and and enjoy the process. That was that was my theme for last year.
Speaker 3Kind of coming out of the pandemic was. You know, we were really really working our butts off to like just keep things together and keep things going, but I was like it's time to start really enjoying it again. You know, like let's have fun and enjoy the work and enjoy the rehearsals and, and so I felt like we really did that. The shows turned out incredible, but mostly it was just like having a great group of students and and enjoying the fruits, the fruits of that and like everybody pushing themselves together and, you know, and create something extraordinary like and it usually happens in the rehearsal like when you you hit a certain chord the right way, or you you do a certain, you know do a certain section of choreography and it just like really really hits like. Those are the moments that you, that you're just like yes and so, and everybody can kind of feel it. So I don't know.
Speaker 2Yeah, a lot of magical moments over the years. Well, I'd also love to ask you how can people show their support for the music program at Burroughs?
Speaker 3Well, I would say the number one way is just buying tickets and coming to see the show. Our philosophy is that we are performing arts organization, so we try to do a lot of our fundraising just by selling tickets to the shows. But if you can't make it to the show, you can also make a donation on our website. Our website is JVHSVMA, like local music association, jvhsvmacom, and there's a link there for buying tickets on the top right corner so you can go to that website and buy tickets as the shows happen there's also a link where you can donate. And then I mean that's also where we we think and promote our advertisers.
Speaker 3Another great way to support the program is to just support our fundraisers. You know the kids are trying to fundraise to go on all the trips and to pay for all the costumes and stuff, and so we have a great advertising program called the Golden Hill program that a lot of local businesses and Burbank support are really grateful to them. It helps the kids raise money to go on all the trips and things. And you know we put the ads in our program, in our pop show program, but also like on our website and have your businesses link on the website. You know, some people even do those ads like personally, even if you don't have a business, you can, you can be part of that program.
Speaker 3But yeah, I mean, every time that a kid comes in tries to sell you a raffle ticket or a box of seized candy, you know, we, we appreciate every, every support, whether it's that or a ticket, or a donation, or you know we're, we're available to hire. I'll throw that out there if you, if you need a, if you need a group of singers, and you've got, you know, money, no offense, we do get a lot of performance, of invitation. So but we, you know, we've had some really great gigs that have that have helped our fundraising efforts, you know, by people who are hiring us to perform in places. So you know all of all of the things. Anyway, you want, you have an idea, you want to donate, you know, donate a valuable piece of art or put us in your will.
Speaker 2Let's talk, give me a call it's an amazing program worthy of so much support, of course. Thank you so much for joining me, telling me a little bit about your story and more about the vocal music association of boroughs. I appreciate it and wish you a really wonderful school year coming up well, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3Thanks to my brother bank, just like all the work that you guys do is so great. The community really appreciates you and we we appreciate the support and the publicity and we'll see everybody at the shows that's right.
Speaker 1Thank you so much, friend, and thank you for joining me of course, have a great one you too, you too my burbank talks would like to thank all of my burbanks advertisers for their continued support. Burbank water and power to some on a real estate group providence, st Joseph medical center. Burbank chamber of commerce. You meet credit. You make healers, cantina and grill. Ucla health gain credit community Chevrolet media city credit unit. Eric Garcia of farmers insurance robin inside school ups store on third street and hill street cafe.