Brett Boles has been Hall’s beloved choir director for the past five years. Just ask his students, like Choralier Padraign Deveney, who said, “He has made a safe space for all students and a good and fun environment to make music and better musicians.”

 In the years Boles has been here – which were “the best 5 years of my life,” he said – the choral program has seen many highs and few lows. From telling dad jokes every Thursday to making sight reading every day a great joy, there was no reason not to love Boles in the classroom.  

Choralier Cate Emerick said Boles recognizes his students’ humanity, “and we respect him so much not only because he is a talented teacher, but he is also a mentor and support system for all his students. I know that without Mr. Boles, my high school experience would have been very different.”

But on March 23, 2023, Boles announced that the 2022-2023 school year would be his last year here as our choral director. He made sure to emphasize he is leaving on his own terms. 

Since 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boles has been posting short videos under the brand name “The M Tea” on his social media accounts.  The M Tea stands for the Musical Tea, where Brett would “spill the tea on why certain musical theater songs work so well, from a songwriter’s perspective!”

Boles is now pretty famous on his social media accounts with a following of more than 370,000 on TikTok and 100,000 on Instagram – including a notable following of Lin-Manuel Miranda.  (You can find Boles on @brettboles on TikTok and @thebrettboles on Instagram.) 

“I’ve been offered some opportunities that I simply can’t turn down,” Boles said after being offered chances to broaden his work from the creative and financial side of things.  This is what prompted him to step down as Director of Choirs at Hall High School. 

In response to the news, Bryce Blodgett, a Choralier, said, “Mr. Boles has had a great impact on the entire program by making it fun and exposing us to choral arrangements to many songs we know and love.”

Our beloved choir director has seen the choral program at its highest with epic performances in Madrigals, Broadway concerts, and Pops ‘n Jazz, and in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many may remember the times of having choir in the gymnasium because of block scheduling.

Bole’s Teaching Assistant, Chorlier Mercedes Roussos said of Boles, “I’ve watched him teach students to love music with the same passion and adoration that he brings to the classroom every single day.”

Though Boles notes that teaching at Hall “has been one of the great joys of my life,” he is excited to head up the music division of the Canadian company 7 Creative Connections and create online courses for songwriting for aspiring songwriters.  He aims “to empower creative people around the world by providing them with the digital content and the resources they need to succeed.”

He will also be creating a live version of the MTea that he does on Instagram and TikTok.  His first performance of that will be in September and he hopes to possibly be taking that to the road – maybe even landing on Broadway one day.

If that’s not enough, “I got a couple of musicals that I’m writing, too,” he adds. 

Boles is clear, though, Hall is being left “in very good hands with Dr. Younse!”  

Dr. Younse is coming to Hall in the 2023-2024 school year after serving as the musical director at Simsbury.  He has a masters and a doctorate in vocal pedagogy as well as years of experience with high-quality musical performance as well as teaching teachers how to teach. It’s pretty nice to know that our choral program looks like it will be in great hands!

It is Boles’ hope that the music program grows from the 107 students it currently has and gets “back to our pre-Covid numbers of about 200 in the program at least.”  

He also hopes “that A Cafella and Voce continue to thrive and that Choraliers continues to maintain that bar of excellence that has been maintained for the last 30 years.  Mostly, he hopes “the program just continues to grow and flourish!”