Our Story
Our story began in 2015 when Carrie Bonanotte recognized a need in our community for a children’s choir. As a former middle school choir director now staying home to raise her three small children, Carrie decided to start the Bel Canto Children’s Choir. It began in her living room, rehearsing weekly with these seven brave musicians. Here is a picture of them at their first recital in December of 2015.
It didn’t take long for the community to get excited about this new opportunity. Our very next session had almost double the children and their sound began to develop, as well as their focus and confidence. Here they are singing “The Water is Wide” where our focus was on pitch matching and tall, open vowels. This was the moment that Carrie realized very small children were capable of making beautiful music.
In the fall of 2016, we moved out of the Bonanotte living room and into the Flossmoor Community Church, thankfully so, because our little children’s choir continued to grow!
Before long, we had the need to separate the choir into three distinct age groups to better serve the needs of the singers. This was the start of the Children’s Choir (youngest singers), Youth Choir (middle ages), and Concert Choir (oldest singers, pictured here.)
Carrie believes strongly that music making and character building go hand in hand. The qualities that make a great musician also make a great community member: hard work, compassion, and the ability to work together towards a common goal. The motto of the Bel Canto Choir program is “Create Through Character,” meaning that focusing on the child’s character is beneficial for the student, the group, and the community. If we focus on character, we will be creating a beautiful product on multiple levels.
The Bel Canto students have participated in multiple community service projects that have benefitted many local non-profit organizations. Students absolutely always participate in these projects with enthusiasm and compassion to help provide for those in need.
COVID-19 had a devastating affect on the world and the choral community. We abruptly stopped our rehearsals to keep our community safe, but the uncertainty was unsettling for all of us. We took a short break while we tried to understand what life looked like moving forward. Carrie first thought to create YouTube videos so she could continue reading to her students, an absolute favorite part of her classes. It was her hope that making these videos would provide the students with a sense of comfort in such uncertain times.
Then she began online classes where she could continue to give instruction so student’s voices and musicianship would continue to grow. No one knew how long we would be quarantining so we had to do something to give ourselves some sense of normalcy. With the help of https://www.annecoltonfilms.com/ we were even able to put together a virtual choir video so we could hear our voices together again.
We emerged from COVID stronger than ever. We were so happy to be back together again and Carrie had an even greater passion for bringing her community together through the arts. This is when the Spotlight Performance Academy was truly born.
Carrie started with expanding her programming to adults, forming the Bel Canto Community Choir in 2022. She started with 11 brave adults and it quickly grew to a choir of over 70 people with various experience levels, from professionals to first time choir participants.
Our programs continue to grow with introducing Improv Comedy classes, Parent/Tot music classes, and musical theater opportunities for both children and adults. Our impact on the arts in our community has been incredible and we feel we are just getting started!
