“Every note you sing has purpose. Every word you say has meaning.”
These were among the final words of encouragement provided by Kellogg Community College Music Area Coordinator and Vocal Arts Director Dr. Gerald Case-Blanchard to his more than three dozen singers just before they took the stage to perform the College’s annual “Singing in the Spring” concert in April.
The concert, subtitled, “I, Too, Sing America,” featured a program celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America and the 20th anniversary of the choir performing “Singing in the Spring” at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Battle Creek.
Case-Blanchard’s words resonated with his choir members then, they resonated with the ones who joined him on an international concert tour of the Baltics in June, and they continue to resonate as members prepare for an academic year full of additional anniversaries and milestones.
The 2026 academic year not only marks the 70th anniversary of KCC as a college, but is also the 70th anniversary of the KCC choirs (specifically the Kellogg Singers and KCC Choral Union). The year also marks the 65th anniversary of the KCC Concert Band, the 50th anniversary of the KCC Jazz Band and the 25th anniversary of the Branch County Community Chorus.
Case-Blanchard and his charges – students and community singers alike – have a full slate of concerts planned to honor each milestone.
“This season is about honoring our past, celebrating who we are today and building our future,” Case-Blanchard said. “I hope people recognize that they are experiencing more than a concert, but rather they are participating in a living legacy.”
Music matters
As a founding member of KCC’s Branch County Community Chorus, Diane Pridgeon is a major contributor to that legacy, singing with the choir for more than 20 years.
An elementary teacher and director of music for St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Coldwater when she joined the group, Pridgeon said she “grabbed the chance to weekly replenish my own musical needs.”
It was challenging – and fun – to be on the receiving end of musical instruction for a change, she said.
“For me singing is liberating,” Pridgeon said. “At rehearsals when the whole group is focused I feel connected to everyone. … With BCCC, KCC is serving my need to belong, to reach out to the community and have fun right where I live.”
Celebrating the milestones this coming year is giving Pridgeon time to reflect, she said, “to appreciate the accomplishments of years past and to hope for the future.”
That hope for the future is built in part by the purpose and meaning alluded to in Case-Blanchard’s April address to his choir: What the choir does matters because music – and especially music made by and for a community – matters.
“Music teaches us to listen, connect and create something greater than ourselves,” Case-Blanchard said. “After 70 years, that need has not changed, nor will it. By its very nature, singing is communication; when we sing together, we connect not only our voices, but something deeper within the human spirit.”
A positive path
Anthony Garn has been singing with the Kellogg Singers and KCC Choral Union for more than a decade, joining in 2011 about a year after moving to Michigan and missing being part of a musical ensemble.
Garn loves the people, he said, and the musical challenges provided by Case-Blanchard. He’s traveled with the choir to perform in amazing places including Ireland, Italy and the Baltics, as well as states from Minnesota to New York.
Garn said even after 70 years it’s still important to continue putting music into the world.
“Times change, people change and even music changes, but its relevance to the human condition doesn’t,” he said. “We need music done well to bring positivity into the world through communal cooperation to show that there is a positive path.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Case-Blanchard as he prepares to lead the choirs into another year of community music making at KCC, which includes a schedule of more than a dozen formal concerts offered free and open to the public.
“What began with a small group of students in 1956 has become a 70-year tradition that has touched thousands of lives,” Case-Blanchard said. “Generations have changed, but our purpose remains the same: bringing people together through song, building relationships and creating a sense of belonging. That was central to our mission in 1956, and it remains so in 2026.”
This article first appeared in the September 2026 edition of BruIN magazine. To read the issue online, please visit kellogg.edu/bruinmagazine.
