It can be a remarkable accomplishment to have your composition or arrangement performed by a nationally renowned choir, opera, or orchestra. Now, it’s something that Jordan Dollins can now mark off his bucket list.
Dollins, the Portage High School choir teacher, recently had his arrangement of the traditional Irish folk song, “I’ll Tell Me Ma,” performed by the Indianapolis Children’s Choir (ICC).
A native of Troy, Missouri, Dollins currently lives in Valparaiso with his husband, Stephen Dean.
Upon receiving his Masters Degree from Ball State University in Muncie, Dollins spent his first four years teaching at John Glenn High School in Walkerton. He has been teaching at Portage for the last seven years.
Dollins sang in church while he was growing up in Missouri. He joined choir while in middle school and became a part of the show choir in high school. Dollins’ accompanist was a science teacher named Jan Ward, who was married to one of the choir teachers at the high school. He still keeps in contact with Ward.
“She did a lot of arranging and composing, took me under her wing, and taught me some of the basics,” Dollins said. “It was really encouraging. In terms of writing music, I look to her as one of my formational people.”
Knowing the audience is a key component to writing a composition, according to Dollins. He believes that knowing the capabilities of the musicians is incredibly important. He mostly writes music for vocalists, although he has written some compositions for bands and orchestras. Dollins believes he gives a composition structure, and the singers breathe life into it.
“I like my compositions to draw something out of the singers,” Dollins said. “Is it fun? Is it introspective? Is it challenging in a cerebral way or an emotional way? I like to give them something that's more than just singing from the notes.”
The song Dollins arranged is an Irish children's song. The arrangement afforded him the opportunity to put his own mark on the song. It started about 10 years ago when Dollins’ husband asked him to find and arrange an upbeat song his students could perform when he came across “I’ll Tell Me Ma.” Around three years ago, at the Indiana Choral Directors Association conference, he attended a breakout session which covered writing for children’s choirs. Dollins reached out to the proctor of the session, who turned out to be the editor for the ICC’s publishing house, to gauge her interest in having it published. She looked at the arrangement and told him the ICC would be interested.
Last summer, the ICC reached out to Dollins to express interest in performing the arrangement for their spring concert. He traveled to Indianapolis to work with the choir to rehearse the piece in January. In March, Dollins’ work was performed by the ICC. After writing and playing the arrangement, Dollins was more than pleased to hear the result.
“It was almost a giddy feeling,” Dollins said. “My heart was racing through the whole thing, and the piece is only a minute and 45 seconds long. I sat there afterward and just breathed it all in. When the silence came right after they were done, and I was like, ‘I did that.’ It was really cool.”