Choruses are transforming. In many parts of the world, new communities create new vocal ensembles to reflect their own identities and passions. As populations shift, and communities expand to include a diverse range of people, choirs seek to span conventionally unbridgeable borders such as rich–poor, East–West, North–South, or Christian–Muslim. Likewise, concert audiences are changing, and increasingly demand repertoire that is relevant to their respective cultures and experiences. The younger generations, which have grown up in the digital age and with globalization, also seem to be more open and receptive to different cultures than some of the older generations.
In this chapter, I will focus on the children’s chorus and its future in an increasingly globalized society. This discussion will be based on my artistic and social philosophy – one that has been strengthened by personal experience as founder and conductor of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC), an organization which began as an after-school program and is designed to thrive in a diverse, but still largely segregated city. In this environment, I learned a great deal from the children as I observed how they changed both socially and musically, and how they learned to interact comfortably with peers from diverse backgrounds. I will also examine the state of the youth chorus today, its place in the community, and the challenges it faces in organization, advocacy, and audience development. I will argue that choruses should strive for both artistic excellence and diversity: the dual mission that has propelled me to question the relevance of the children’s chorus in a global community – one that is faced with ever-changing attitudes, new trends and audiences, and many opportunities for non-traditional avenues for performance and outreach.
Before founding the Young People’s Chorus over twenty years ago, I studied the mission statements of many choirs that were already in existence. I noticed that most of them had a common theme – to create a chorus capable of attaining the highest levels of artistic achievement in performance. These thoughts immediately came to mind: What constitutes artistic excellence in children’s choruses? Who are the children receiving music performance opportunities and education? How do family resources affect membership? How does membership affect repertoire? How does membership attract an audience?
In order to answer these questions, we must dispel some misconceptions and understand the impact that numerous, newly formed community-based choruses have in neighborhoods and concert halls, and will eventually have on the political stage. I have tried to answer these questions by reenvisioning the repertoire, membership, and organizational practices of the chorus. How these three aspects evolve will determine the nature of the children’s chorus as it matures in the twenty-first century.
Establishing a choir is not difficult. One does not need a substantial amount of money. One can expect quick results and can achieve excellence with almost any skill level. With great singers, a chorus can easily be superb, but even with inexperienced singers one can create a chorus that is capable of inspiring audiences. The resource needs are simple: a tuning fork or pitch pipe, a piano or guitar, and a space in which to rehearse.
Music making can be easy. You can teach by rote. You can call several people together and decide on repertoire that can easily be performed by all involved. Developing an audience is just as simple; invite the friends and family members of the singers to a local social hall or church for the performance and hold a post-concert reception. In some instances, the social purpose may take precedence over musical aesthetics. One can be forgiven for a mediocre performance if the message is sufficiently impactful. The human voice is such an inspiring and expressive instrument that, outside of the professional concert hall, people are often willing to overlook the technical shortcomings of singers. A solid technique and musical literacy do not necessarily supersede singing with passion, gusto, or joy.
However, if the conductor’s purpose is both social awareness and musical excellence, the challenges are obviously more demanding. To illustrate these ideas, I offer an example from my personal experience.
In 1988 I formed the Children’s Aid Society Young People’s Chorus, which later became an independent organization called the Young People’s Chorus of New York City . The Children’s Aid Society is a not-for-profit program that serves the 100,000 very needy children in New York City each year. When I began working with this group, their programs took place in specific, separate neighborhoods. Yet, I was convinced that the children in the various choral programs could learn much from each other. I offered the Children’s Aid Society the idea of gathering children from all their after-school neighborhood centers and bringing them together with children from other centers – children from different ethnic backgrounds, as well as children from both below-poverty and well-to-do families. At the same time, I wanted to create a children’s chorus that would use its cultural diversity to reach greater heights of artistry.
I received some basic funding, a beautiful rehearsal room and buses to bring the children from different parts of New York City – Harlem, Greenwich Village, Spanish Harlem, the Lower East Side, the Bronx – to meet on the Upper East Side, one of the city’s posh neighborhoods. The initial chorus was composed of nearly seventy singers, ages 8–14, who came to the group from all walks of life.
On my first day of rehearsal, a reporter from the Upper East Side Resident interviewed me in the hallway. Several children were already waiting for rehearsal to begin, while other children and their parents were still streaming in from the elevator and the stairs. During the interview, a twelve-year-old girl from Spanish Harlem with shabby clothes and unkempt hair was pulling on my jacket, trying to get my attention. Suddenly the door of the elevator opened and out stepped a very tall woman in a mink coat, carrying several shopping bags bearing the names of French boutiques. With her twelve-year old daughter in tow, she hurried towards me to explain why they were late. She and her daughter had spent the weekend shopping in Paris for new clothes for school, but her plane had been delayed coming back because of inclement weather. In the meantime the young girl by my side who had been pulling on my jacket finally spoke up, “Mr. Núñez, don’t forget I need $1.50 to buy a bus token to get home tonight. My mom doesn’t have any money.”
The reporter was quick to notice what he later referred to as the “juxtaposition” in the Young People’s Chorus, not just of ethnicities, but of classes too. This was exactly what I wanted to create. If I could bring urban children of different racial, economic, and religious backgrounds to work together, barriers would fall and the youngsters would realize how much they had in common. I was also convinced that, with proper training, these children could be excellent and enthusiastic musicians. Singing in a chorus would lose its traditional stigma among young people, and would actually be thought of as “cool.”
Such was the reality I dealt with during my first few years as a children’s chorus conductor. It reflected a reality that was prevalent and pervasive in New York City and around the world. There were immense social gaps and wide disparities of wealth, color, and beliefs. But seeing the initial results, I was convinced more than ever that music would be an effective way to bridge these gaps. I looked at similar previous efforts around the world. Twenty years ago, there were very few models to which I could aspire. Today there are numerous parallel endeavors around the world that can be held up as models of success, such as El Sistema , the visionary global movement started in Venezuela in 1978 that has transformed the lives of thousands of children, while transforming the communities around them.
YPC proved to be an ideal laboratory for me. I took the traditional format of the American children’s chorus and adapted it to an environment that was unique to New York City, where diversity was a microcosm of a global world. If I could successfully create an excellent chorus with such a diverse membership – something I realized had not been pursued with deliberation before – it could serve as a model for other groups with similar intentions. I took the same care and technical considerations founded in eighteenth-century choral education and tried to keep the best of those traditions alive. Yet I adapted the methodologies and techniques to create a pedagogy that seemed to suit the choir members.
My philosophy has grown out of my personal background. I was raised in the Dominican Republic and in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. While I was studying classical piano, I was constantly exposed to Latin rhythms on the streets. My life was infused with the very distinct culture around me. When I started composing, my music naturally reflected a fusion of all the styles I learned and grew up with. My fascination with this cultural mix carried over to adulthood, when I tried to recreate the same experience for the children with whom I was working. These students were young, eager, and open-minded, and served as the perfect group for my new endeavor. Together we sought to break new ground in the realm of the children’s chorus, as I considered new ideas for membership, repertoire, and vocal styles, and how these ideas could evolve and be developed in communities where social barriers had been broken.
There is a lingering condescension towards children’s choruses because of the traditional role children’s choruses have played throughout history. In essence, they have played a supporting role. Over the centuries, the most influential composers of serious music did not devote much time to writing music for children’s choruses except for a rare few, such as Vivaldi , Kodály , and Britten . Others wrote music for children as minor characters or as metaphorical elements in opera or oratorio . Latin American and Asian composers usually just arranged folk songs for children instead of writing extensive works exclusively for children. Therefore, audiences had very few opportunities to hear children sing in a capacity equal to their adult co-performers. This problem still exists today, in that most of the people who attend performances of children’s chorus music are not lovers of that music in its own right: they are there because they are the parents or friends of the singers. While there are a few esteemed choirs that have been able to reach a larger audience, such as the Hong Kong Children’s Chorus, the Tapiola of Finland , or the internationally renowned Vienna Boys Choir, serious music-goers (those who purchase subscription tickets to ballets, orchestras, dance companies, professional new music ensembles, and chamber ensembles, or even professional choirs) are not the same audience who attend children’s chorus concerts. The fact is that most children’s chorus concerts are marketed as family concerts (that is, simply family endeavors) or as a minor part of a larger festival. Few concert series or subscriptions of a children’s ensemble, if any, exist. To some listeners, the children’s chorus has not reached comparable levels of artistic legitimacy to other choirs. In many countries, the children’s chorus is an extension of the schools, an educational addendum. This prejudice is persistent; the children’s chorus is perceived as an amateur ensemble, which at best hopes to mold undiscovered talent. Audiences and critics may be kinder to children’s choruses because children are not perceived to be truly capable of being excellent: the process of trying is seen as enough.
Taking these facts into consideration, I find the traditional label of “children’s chorus” rather limiting, and I struggled for some time to redefine it. When I started my own chorus, I knew that I needed to question certain terms. I didn’t want a “choir,” nor did I want to call it a “children’s chorus.” From the general public’s perspective, the “children’s chorus” label remains the catch-all term that includes any amateur singer who is of pre-college age. As a general rule, the children’s chorus is defined as a group of singers with unchanged voices (treble), and the youth chorus as a group that includes voices that have changed (girls and boys with changed voices). Among many choruses around the world, a youth ensemble may often include members up to age thirty. But despite the fact that I started YPC with only fourteen-year-olds as the oldest members, I envisioned the chorus growing to include older singers and boys with changed voices. Although this idea would take all of ten years to accomplish, I was aware at the choir’s inception that there were no similar choruses for young men in New York City. Many of these young men lived in disenfranchised neighborhoods and were vulnerable to gangs, drugs, and violence. If any lives could be changed by music, this group needed the most help.
Some choruses have managed to skirt the issue of perceived legitimacy by adopting more organic names, ones that refer neither to “children” nor to “youth.” Examples include Amabile (Canada ), which is made up of girls and boys (changed and unchanged voices) ages 6–18; Shallaway (Canada), made up of girls and boys (with unchanged voices) up to age 18; Carmina Slovenica (Slovenia ), made up of girls and women up to age 22; Cantamus (UK), made up of females ages 13–19; Anima (USA), made up of girls and boys (with unchanged voices) up to age 18; and Angelica (Japan ), girls ages 13–18. I am not comparing the original concerns and motivations of these choirs with mine, but I knew in the early days I was working with a stigmatized perception. I ended up with Young People as a name, which I find respectful and inclusive of a wider range of ages, from 8 to 26; however, the name continues to pose challenges since it connotes youth.
Historically, the children’s chorus evolved from an “affinity-based” to an “identity-based” group. Affinity-based groups – mainly church or community children’s choirs – were the most popular until recently, given the ease with which they could be formed, connecting people from the same communities, in small homogeneous towns and cities, with common interests and backgrounds. Over time, as shifting populations changed the face of communities, identity-based groups with stronger social agendas and more specific missions, often focused on social equity, began to emerge.
There is an increasing interest in the creation of choruses that reflect a wider educational and social agenda. The Dominican Republic , for example, is beginning a national program that will bridge the rich and the poor, something that has never been accepted in the past. In 2010, the country began a national choral program with a mission of inclusion. The program, called Uno a Uno (One by One), is a non-governmental effort to unite the country’s children, rich and poor, as a first step in building a community of diverse economic backgrounds. In 1984, in the midst of Uganda ’s civil war, human rights activist Ray Barnett started the African Children’s Choir . He was inspired by the singing of one small boy, and formed the first African Children’s Choir “to show the world that Africa’s most vulnerable children have beauty, dignity and unlimited ability.” In 1989, the World Youth Choir was established; it has became one of the most remarkable musical and intercultural experiences offered to young musicians, with a message of “international peace and tolerance in perfect artistic unity.” 1
Establishing diversity in a youth chorus is not difficult since today’s youth have grown up in a multicultural society that took older generations longer to develop and longer to accept. Today’s youth take multiculturalism as a matter of course. They know of no time when the Internet, social media, and mobile phones did not exist, and information was not as readily accessible as nowadays. Moreover, throughout Europe, North America, and practically any area where immigrants comprise a substantial part of the demographics and infuse the mainstream with their own cultures, schools are enrolling children from diverse backgrounds at a rapid rate. It is regrettable that there has been an anti-immigrant backlash recently which has targeted immigrant schoolchildren everywhere from the US to France and Sweden , but the mere proximity of children to others from different cultures is exposing them to new cultures and values at a much more accelerated pace than their parents ever encountered. Young people learn to juggle social identities and roles. They interact in an inclusive, structured world at school and then adapt their behavior to different worlds after school. It is common to find that in most immigrant families, parents feel a certain duty to defend their national heritage – an instinctive reaction to the environment in which the immigrants find themselves – and strive to teach their children about their own history and language. Consequently, both the “host” and “new” communities are being asked to adapt or to risk isolation.
The arts are perhaps the most visible manifestation of this adaptation. One can see it in the cross-cultural fusions of styles that have created many new captivating rhythms and forms that have become part of the mainstream musical vocabulary: salsa , a fusion of Cuban-African son developed by Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s; bhangra , folk music that originated from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan , with a back beat; reggaeton , salsa mixed with rap and reggae, popular among Afro-Latino youth in the early 1990s. One can hear it in beur hip-hop in France and urban desi music, which takes pride in its Bollywood roots. Different cultures expect to represent themselves differently through cultural vocabularies that are familiar and relevant to them.
The fusion of musical styles in new choral repertoire is already happening, and will continue to impact repertoire in the future with an influx of newly composed music influenced by multiple traditions. Likewise, concert audiences are changing, increasingly demanding musical repertoire that is relevant to their cultures and experiences. Surely, performing multicultural music has been a wonderful introduction to new cultures. It has given most programs the impression of being open and inclusive. But multiculturalism in repertoire is only the beginning of an unpredictable and musically uncertain future, where ideas of unity quickly become outmoded, if not overused, and professionals in the field must form a new choral universality . For, as inspiring as the songs may be, the performers and audiences may be at cross-purposes; there is no denying that the act of inclusion is not always visible in terms of membership.
As young singers – the true offspring of the twenty-first century, steeped in the openness of cultures and ideas that have been laid out before them through decades of cultural innovation and social struggle – look to the future, many choirs find themselves in a state of transition. How, then, can youth choruses deal with rapidly changing demographics, cultures, ideas, and tastes? As the world becomes more multiracial, and cultural hybridity becomes the norm, we will need to reconsider three areas where these changes will have the most impact: repertoire and the changing face of musical styles, membership and diversity of both the ensemble and its audience, and management practices.
In order to prepare for a diverse future, children’s choirs must develop new approaches to pedagogy and technique in order to include and not isolate. Over the years, many children’s choruses have evolved slowly and some have changed little from their roots. Some examples of change might include transitions from exclusive boys’ or girls’ choirs to mixed-gender choirs, or from purely classical repertoire to include multicultural music, jazz , or gospel. To paraphrase Igor Stravinsky in his Norton Lectures, tradition is something we receive from past generations, but we must promise that it will bear fruit. Once we accept an idea, we must speak it, change it, and adapt it before passing it on. 2
We must, in this sense, keep ourselves within tradition and make it our own. We must continually explore the past while seeking a new future; our individual sense of self must be managed to take on the rapidly changing world. We must discipline ourselves to accept new ways of conducting the chorus, auditioning singers, choosing repertoire, and staging, and new ways of using technology and reaching out to an ever-evolving, more enlightened audience.
As repertoires evolve around the globe, music becomes an effective medium to represent unique perspectives and reinterpretations of distinct cultures. If choirs choose to change their mission to diversify their membership to include children from cultures outside the mainstream, the concept of excellence should also change to include performing a globalized repertoire. This notion goes beyond multicultural pieces of certain cultures; it encompasses the fusion of different rhythms, harmonies, languages, and basic musical harmonic language. I do not know what is coming musically, but I do know that we must be ready for new musical concepts that will employ new vocal techniques, new ways to perform, and alternative ways to communicate with the audience. If conductors focus on performing only one style of music, they are forced to look for a certain voice that fits within the box of that particular genre and anything outside the box will be rejected. However, within musical multiplicity comes fluidity of vocal techniques and different vocal backgrounds become an asset.
Children’s choirs never get old; the children graduate and move on and new voices replace them. Conductors, unfortunately, do age, and it is essential that they figure out how to stay in touch with musical transformations in both the classical and the non-classical realms. Meanwhile, as globalization continues to break boundaries and exposes societies to cultural treasures that have previously been arcane, composers are absorbing the world’s sounds and young people are soaking up the new dances and rhythms at a very fast rate. Such conditions are the perfect incubator of new musical ideas. From musical diversity, we can reinvent the use of the concert stage or churches for concerts. Why not sing in museums, galleries, in restaurants with dinner being served as great jazz artists do, or in the Apple store?
As we train our singers for a new musical tomorrow, we need to incorporate techniques that allow singing with different colors, degrees of vibrato, ability to manipulate weight and pitch. We also need to build a better ability to work with any musical genre and with different conductors. If a choir has a mission of diversity to include children from different backgrounds and different musical traditions, we are bound to hear vocal production that is not founded on Western choral traditions. This discovery may affect the concept of excellence for the educated music lover. How can one achieve conventional choral excellence with children who have neither heard nor experienced the technique of the most basic choral music by Brahms , Bach , or Purcell ?
As we move towards a pluralistic future, we must figure out how to teach music from the classical tradition as well as music from other cultures to children who have little or no training in these areas. In a sense, our options are greatly expanded. As we broaden the scope of our repertoire, we also raise the bar, expecting musical skills that are demanding in their own way. With commitment and an understanding of diverse cultures, we can teach any young child the proper techniques necessary to produce a beautiful, healthy tone able to perform an authentic interpretation of classical literature as well as any style of music. Any child from any part of the world can be trained to sing beautifully in any style of music.
Let me conclude this section with another anecdote. Recently I was asked to write a new song to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary dinner for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in New York City, an organization that helps to deepen ties between US and Japanese businesses in the United States . The Japanese, who are deeply rooted in tradition, were enthusiastically open to the idea of creating new songs that would bring together our two cultures. The new song, entitled “Building Bridges”, was based on Japanese pentatonic melodies with American pop rhythms. The words were co-written with a Japanese business professional and were sung in English and Japanese. The instrumentation included piano, koto, taiko drums, and drum set and bass. While this style may not sound unusual when viewed in the context of other contemporary children’s choral works, not so long ago this idea would have been unthinkable at such a prestigious dinner with such important businessmen and-women. Yet the ties between cultures transcend conventional attitudes about music, and the boundaries of nation-states and transnational corporations, once insurmountable, are now blurred.
Using children to bridge cultures is an effective route to take as they have fewer preconceptions on race and color. Young people who are living in a diverse world at school are more open to the idea of allowing a diverse membership into the choir. However, it is often the case that the inflexible, fixed attitudes of privileging among some adults spill over into their own families, thereby perpetuating misconceptions that hinder the growth of these mission-based choirs.
Adult choirs that have a difficult time changing their roster are also forming children’s choirs within their ranks. This concept allows open-minded adults to participate in crossing into other cultures and to build a new sense of themselves through such connections. Here they allow diversity in membership, repertoire, and mission to grow. Viewed from this perspective, the future appears to rest on the ideas acquired and developed by young people today. In time this new direction can affect the adult choirs as the young people grow up and become singing adults and audience members.
When I started YPC, there were no guideposts or benchmarks available to indicate how to achieve “artistic excellence” with young voices. It took me years of study to know what I wanted to achieve with the children’s chorus. I listened to dozens of choirs before I could begin to hear the nuances in skill level, vocal quality, and abilities. In order to achieve what constituted choral excellence, I needed to make a decision on what vocal techniques and which educational model worked best for me from among all the different choral programs I heard worldwide. I also learned that prior vocal training, family values, and finances had a greater impact on musical education and excellence than I had expected.
I learned early on that the quality of choral education varied all around the world, with a dramatic difference between boys’ and girls’ choirs and even more when they were combined. I heard unique vocal techniques in Eastern and Western Europe, throughout Asia and different parts of North and South America. Most of these ensembles were comprised of a homogeneous blend of voices from a particular region, with only a few choirs with a little diversity in their membership. I believe the only commonality between choirs was the training of the conductor in the Western model. Otherwise, choirs perform traditional choral works from the European tradition, and music of their culture. The essence of each choir comes through when they sing “their” music or music from their particular region. Only then can choirs show varied timbres, ease of performance, language facility, and a charm that cannot be matched by others.
It seemed to me that it was much easier to teach a group of children with similar backgrounds and experiences a certain kind of music on a regular basis. In addition, most members of conventional community choirs are involved in music making either during the day in school or studying voice or taking instrument lessons privately. Theory, technique, and discipline are likely already taught and ingrained in students prior to chorus rehearsals. Many choirs also have a rigorous audition process. Once enlisted, the children are put on a level system that allows them to learn and grow within a prescribed educational paradigm before reaching the highest choral division. The final choral division usually has the oldest and most advanced students who are the ones being heard in public. This conservatory style of education can lead to a very high level of musicianship, but only certain types of families are able to participate in such a rigorous system for years – families with a strong appreciation for music education and an understanding of discipline and the effect of consistency of effort, which have the time and the means to support their children, and which are financially secure. A chorus that aims to transcend social and economic barriers, therefore, will need to consider the basic concerns of members who are not as privileged.
The twenty-first-century children’s choral conductor faces the major challenge of understanding change. It is important to note that the changes are not just cultural or ethnographic. The expectations of managing such ensembles are also changing. Choirs managed in an “autocratic” manner will see young people yearning to work in more democratic forms of participation, following the lead of many of their popular and inescapably visible idols. Young people forming their own groups – whether they are a cappella groups or garage bands – appear to follow this model, with no one person in full control. Each member takes turns leading or conducting, and the group votes on musical choices. An example of this social equality is the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra , a Grammy award-winning classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. Orpheus is well known for its collaborative leadership style, in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score. 3
Changes in membership and audience necessitate changes in traditional financial management models. The traditional tuition-based chorus might not survive in this new environment, as new members, especially those from disenfranchised communities, may not be able to afford the tuition costs. Individual and corporate support is still needed to support substantial scholarship programs. In addition, these ensembles need new strategic and financial business plans that include innovative fundraising campaigns that accommodate post-recession strategies and redefine grassroots donor cultivation and marketing, such as the use of social networking websites. Recently, philanthropy has been leaning more favorably towards collaborative efforts among various organizations. In the absence of sufficient funds, collaborations are seen as a more effective way to share resources and best practices, and even, in some cases, office and rehearsal space. Growth strategies must be carefully considered. Most choirs survive with only a skeletal staff; however, as membership, commitments, and responsibilities grow, these ensembles also need to redesign their staff models. Some groups may need full-time staff to help them learn about commitment, discipline, and rehearsal attendance. Moreover, a large volunteer force is essential to the overall management of a chorus. How much of a social function you are willing to offer your members will determine what areas of expansion you will need to address, and what kind of staff you will employ.
Given the usual funds available, scholarships and other forms of support barely cover many other needs, such as transportation, food, touring, uniforms, additional music education, supplemental mentorship, or even just complimentary tickets to allow all members of the family to attend performances that are not free of charge. While this final detail may seem small, widening the social mission of a chorus also means addressing the economic realities of its membership, such as single-parent households or the ability to pay a babysitter. At the same time, financial assistance should be given discreetly so as to preserve a sense of equality among the children. I have found that providing something as simple as free tickets to the entire family could be crucial to their child’s participation. Eventually, families see the impact that the chorus has on their children and they become the best resource to ensure that the child goes to rehearsals and concerts.
With new membership, new audiences also emerge. The parents of the singers are the most fervent supporters. Family education is a very important aspect of running a diverse music program. Not only will we add one or two multicultural pieces to our programs, our audiences will demand a more global view. In my experience, parents of some singers were more than willing to share new music with the conductors and even offered to help teach the ensemble techniques that were unique to the particular work. As adults marry outside their own culture, biracial and multiracial children will demand new music that reflects their complex identities – new rhythms, melodic and harmonic styles, and instruments that combine uniquely diverse cultures. As we change our membership and repertoire, we must train ourselves to work within the new community and to be flexible enough to accept new rhythmic and melodic directions with no preconceptions or prejudice. Conductors must not come with preconceived notions and expectations; they must be open to new ideals and cultural nuances, so that in the end, both they and the families learn from one another.
Beyond the family needs at concerts and at home, extra-familial audience expectations are also changing. What do audiences with no relation to your choir expect from this new model of diversity? Will their concept of excellence be met? When there is diversity, the audience will not expect your chorus to perform masterworks. They may have different expectations based on stereotypes. And one of the greatest challenges is not merely to create an excellent chorus, but to shatter these stereotypes.
It took years to educate and convince a largely skeptical New York City public that even though the children come from diverse backgrounds, they are able to sing music of all styles, including classical repertoire, at a very high level; it was not until the New York Times reviewed YPC concerts and wrote a superb review, followed by several national articles, that we were able to attract the general public. To achieve musical excellence per se is one thing; to change the mindset of the general public is a larger, more extensive, and unavoidably collective endeavor.
We live in a multicultural world that, in a sense, is still experiencing growing pains and is learning to function with a redefined identity. In such a world, the children’s chorus can proactively be a vehicle for change, understanding, tolerance, and inclusion. At the same time, the children’s choir has reached a point in which it no longer plays a supporting role, but has become a performing instrument capable of artistic excellence in its own right. The children’s choir has reached its prime. The demands are great, but the rewards are rich.