Dear CCGD families,

As of tonight, April 4, the CCGD professional conducting staff and most of their assistants and pianists have resigned from CCGD. Effective May 2022, nineteen (19) conductors, assistants, and pianists will no longer be serving CCGD. The reason is simple: after an extensive two-year search, the search committee and artistic staff selected Kimberley Ahrens as their first choice for the successor to Cynthia Nott. However, for reasons the artistic staff understands entirely and agrees with, Kimberley has withdrawn her acceptance to this position. Each director and staff person is following her lead, disavowing the misguided opinions of some of the Board, especially regarding the administrative structure and the artistic director's salary. 

As an 11-year CCGD parent and professional music educator, I am asking you to join me in acknowledging that THIS staff and their uncommon teaching talents are the reason the CCGD experience is such a high artistic achievement. It is precisely the skills each person brings that keep CCGD assuredly in the realm of musical and technical excellence rather than mediocrity. Not all teachers are able to get such high-level results. Therefore, I trust implicity the decisions this staff makes. They believe wholeheartedly that Kimberley Ahrens is the right person to follow in Cynthia Nott's significant footsteps. 

I personally will not re-register my child until the current staff and new director, Kimberley Ahrens, are properly rehired. THEY are the reason I have paid tuition and driven downtown and now to Lovers Lane UMC every Monday night for 11 years. As a professional musician and music professor, I understand deeply that it is their specific vision and teaching style that makes CCGD unique and sought-after by hundreds of families.

Please consider signing your support of Kimberley Ahrens for the position of Artistic Director to the Board with me. We need to preserve this extraordinary organization led so beautifully for 25 years. As you heard last night....nothing is broken or in need of change except as directed by the artists in charge.   If you agree, please sign this petition no later than April 7.