A Man Of Note: Concert To Pay Tribute To TCAPS Music Pioneer Tom Stokes

Tonight (Saturday), a group of local choral students, music educators, Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) alumni, and community members will convene at Lars Hockstad Auditorium to (literally) sing the praises of one man. “Gathering in Song,” is hosted by Traverse City Music Boosters as a tribute to Tom Stokes, a long-time TCAPS faculty member and arguably one of the 2-3 people most responsible for building the district’s renowned music programs into what they are today.

According to Traverse City Music Boosters – the nonprofit organization that supports K-12 music education throughout TCAPS by way of scholarships, endowment funding, and more – Stokes is both a product of northern Michigan music education and one of its leading pioneers. Growing up in the region in the 1960s, Stokes found his passion in music thanks in part to a Music Boosters scholarship that allowed him to spend a summer at Interlochen Arts Camp. By the time he graduated, Stokes had been named the top high school vocal soloist in the state at the Michigan Youth Arts Festival.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in music education from DePauw University, Stokes returned to Traverse City and started a career with TCAPS in 1973. So began a 25-year tenure that saw Stokes teaching music at virtually every level – from special education, to elementary music, to junior high and high school choirs. In 1993, Stokes was promoted to K-12 music supervisor, where he oversaw events calendars, transportation logistics, budgeting, staffing, and more for music programs at 18 elementary schools, two junior highs, and two high schools. In 1994, the Michigan School Vocal Music Association named Stokes their “Teacher of the Year.”

According to former students and colleagues, a full list of Stokes’ contributions to local music education would be too lengthy to fit into a single article. However, The Ticker can share two impacts of particular import that Stokes had.

In 1997, Stokes presided over the TCAPS music program as the district split an overcrowding high school, Traverse City Senior High, into two separate schools. As Traverse City Central High and West Senior High were born, the district went through a massive reshuffling that divided students and faculty alike into two separate pools. One of the staff members who chose to move over to West was choral director Russ Larimer, which left Central and its choral program without a leader. The responsibility fell to Stokes to find a replacement.

That search led to the hiring of Jeff Cobb, who served as Central’s director of choral activities from 1997 to 2006 – and who helped keep vocal music alive and well at the school. Cobb, who now serves as director of music programs at Northwestern Michigan College, credits Stokes for giving him the opportunity of a lifetime.

“It was an honor to call Tom Stokes my colleague,” Cobb tells The Ticker. “I am forever indebted to Tom for giving me the opportunity to come teach at Traverse City Central High School. Without his help as music department chair – and the persistence and support of Russ Larimer – I would have never had the chance to work with my amazing students at Central High School and my wonderful colleagues in TCAPS. Tom was an inspiration to his students, supportive of his colleagues, and a pillar in the Traverse City music community.”

One piece of Stokes’ legacy that Cobb took over at Central was Men of Note, the extracurricular all-male ensemble which Stokes had founded at Traverse City Senior High in 1989. That ensemble still exists today, and was the rubric for a similar all-male choir – called Westmen – at West Senior High. Men of Note is also at the core of tonight’s tribute concert, which focuses specifically on the impact Stokes had on encouraging more male participation in choral and music programs.

According to Tom Hoxsie – a 1995 Traverse City Senior High graduate, one of the earliest members of Stokes’ Men of Note program, and the lead organizer of tonight’s concert – Stokes redefined what choir could be for entire generations of local music students.

“Back then, drumming up interest in singing among high school boys was not easy,” Hoxsie explains. “You’re competing against sports, you’re competing against this stereotype that guys don’t sing – and if they do, it’s in a rock band or something like that. For Tom to not only embrace men’s singing, but also a wide variety of kids that came from all different backgrounds, all different musical abilities – that was huge. He was extremely tolerant and patient with that process of getting students involved and getting his groups to a high level. And really, when you listen to some of those Men of Note recordings from back in the day, it’s collegiate-level stuff.”

After high school, Hoxsie developed an ongoing friendship with Stokes, starting in 2000 when Stokes reunited a group of his old Men of Note students to sing together again in a group called The Northmen Singers. That group would soon spin off a smaller a cappella ensemble, The Overtones, which features Hoxsie and five other TCAPS music alumni who still perform together. While Hoxsie acknowledges that his bond with Stokes might make him predisposed to speak highly of his former teacher, he’s also adamant that TCAPS and its music programs would look very different today if Stokes had never come along.

“Tom embraced the idea that tenor-bass music needed to be considered [in a high school choral program], and the fact that those ensembles still exist today is proof that he was right,” Hoxsie says. “Because of him, you can have Westmen featured at the Michigan Music Conference as a 46-member group of tenor and bass singers, performing onstage for all of Michigan’s music educators. Because of him, you can look at Traverse City Central and see that Men of Note has survived through various people retiring and leaving TCAPS and the program changing hands. That those programs are still there proves that there was tremendous value in what Tom did. He hit a home run.”

Tonight’s concert starts at 7pm and will feature not just the current incarnations of Men of Note and Westmen, but also performances from The Overtones, tenor-bass choirs from East and West Middle School, D’Guys (an ensemble of local homeschool students that Stokes worked with in his later years as part of the TEACH Program), and a combined choir featuring alumni of each ensemble. Music Boosters will introduce a new scholarship, named after Stokes, to be seeded by proceeds from the concert. Admission is free, though Music Boosters will be collecting donations to the scholarship fund. To learn more, click here.