IN BRIGHT RED DISPLAY, THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF SONG
Author(s): PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL BRETT
STORY BY RON FLETCHER
Date: January 25, 2004
Page: 12
Section: City Weekly
Anticipation and nerves animated the single file of 60-plus singers that snaked along the twisting hallway leading to the Jordan Hall stage. Sporting red turtlenecks and black pants, the Boston Children's Chorus fidgeted away the final minutes before their debut. Some mouthed the words to the three-song set the group would perform in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Others shifted from foot to foot, humming aloud. A few, to the chaperones' delight, embodied sangfroid.
Eddie Dodson had a slight quaver in his voice as he explained that singing on stage was something that he has wanted to do for most of his decadelong life. The bespectacled Brighton boy said with charming understatement that Jordan Hall was "a nice place to begin." Natachia Kotomori seemed a little more impressed by the venue. After expressing her gratitude for friendships made through singing with youngsters from Chinatown to the suburbs, she called the august hall evidence of the progress the group had made in a short time.
"If we could do this in three months," said Kotomori, "who knows what we could do in a year?"
Darren Dailey, the chorus's artistic director, has some idea.
The New Jersey native, who traces many of his life's successes and values back to elementary-school music programs, believes music can transform a child's life as well as a city's. Leaving the music program he started and developed for 13 years at the St. Patrick Church and Choir School in North Carolina gave Dailey some pause. Realizing how many more lives he could reach in Boston, however, crystallized his decision.
"I almost had no choice," said Dailey, sporting the same colors as his young singers. "Without music, I probably wouldn't have gone to college, wouldn't have met my wife or have the life I have today.
"It's all about providing opportunities. Music does that and so much more. We're working toward the goal of serving a thousand children throughout the city each year. How could I say no to that?"
Dailey then paused for dinner ginger ale and a banana. In the background sounded the angelic voices of the Chicago Children's Choir, the evening's headlining act, who were rehearsing a piece from Haydn. Dailey relished its beauty before citing the storied choir as a model and inspiration for Boston's.
"We want our kids to experience what the Chicago kids have," Dailey said of the 47-year- old choir, which has performed from Carnegie Hall to Ukraine and appeared with stars from Luciano Pavarotti to Bobby McFerrin.
Boston Children's Choir founder and board president Hubie Jones lauded the "artistic excellence" of the Chicago choir as well as its commitment to a diverse chorus.
"We want this chorus to capture and reflect the diversity of Boston," said Jones, who's aiming for a predominantly urban chorus of mixed races, classes, religions, and ethnicities.
"Like Chicago, we plan to contribute our voices and our talents to the cultural life of the city, whether it's at a mosque, a church, a temple, a ballpark, or the Esplanade."
Andres Torres, 16, who has sung with the Chicago choir for six years, was impressed by the Boston Children's Choir's ambition and struck by the parallels between the two cities.
"Without a chorus like this one, children all over the city might not get a chance to experience each other's cultures," said Torres. "Chicago can be a very divided city sometimes, and maybe Boston is, too. Music can help."
The music created by the Boston Children's Choir brought the house to its feet more than once. From the opening Angolan folk song to the closing Quaker hymn "How Can I Keep from Singing," Boston's children sang with a talent, spirit, and promise that belied their brief time together.
"I expect this of children and of the city," said John Ross, above the applause. The veteran music director of "Black Nativity" sees the chorus as a sine qua non.
"Arts are essential," said Ross. "They should be treated like food for the soul, not something to be added or subtracted depending on budgets.
"An aesthetic sense is the most civilizing power we have besides religion."
Interested in having your child sing with the Boston Children's Chorus? Call 617-927-2511 or visit www.bostonchildrenschorus.org.
Got an unusual happening? E-mail Bill Brett at bretts6@comcast.net.
Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company
IN PERFECT HARMONY
Boston Children's Chorus would like to teach the world to sing IN PERFECT HARMONY
[All Editions]
AIDEN FITZGERALD. Boston Herald. Boston, Mass.: Jan 19, 2004. pg. 037
Full Text (477 words)
For the Boston Children's Chorus, harmony means more than blending voices.
Hitting the high notes unites the multiracial group of nearly 100 children, ages 7 to 14 - and their communities.
"Music is universal," said Muriel Heibergerm, chorus executive director. "Music breaks down barriers. Music makes everyone's hearts sing."
Heibergerm hopes the unified diversity of the Boston Children's Chorus will be a "metaphor for the future of our community."
Tonight, the chorus makes its concert debut at Jordan Hall at 8 with the Chicago Children's Chorus. It was the Chicago group's mission to make social changes through music that inspired the creationof the Boston Children's Chorus.
"I was absolutely overwhelmed by the (Chicago chorus') diversity and their singing at such a high level of excellence," said Boston Children's Chorus founder Hubie Jones, dean emeritus of the school of social work at Boston University. "It motivated me to say, `Wow, this is something that Boston ought to have.'"
According to Jones, "The arts are the most nonthreatening, powerful way to bring young people together across racial, ethnic and social class divides - so that they get connected with each other and have fun together."
In Boston and its suburbs, children are recruited for the chorus through schools and neighborhood centers. They study music literacy and learn about various cultures through eclectic song selections.
Tonight's concert opens with "O, Desayo," an Angolese song featuring Bantu, Portuguese and English verses accompanied by African drumming.
In "The Song That Nature Sings," the children sing, "in everything there is beauty, a hint of love, a form of grace."
"Those are extraordinary words for children to be singing," said artistic director Darren Dailey, whose favorite part of his job is "working with the kids and helping them discover their voices."
In addition to conducting the Boston Children's Chorus, Dailey is working on a doctorate in sacred music through the Graduate Theological Foundation.
Singer Isabel Koyoma, 9, from Cambridge, said she enjoys learning more about music with other kids.
"I love to harmonize," Koyoma said. "I sing in the shower. I sing when I go to bed, and now I want to take it a little more seriously."
According to Dailey, "Everyone has a talent. Everyone has a gift. Regardless of the color of their skin or their socio-economic background, everyone has something to give."
TAIL: The Boston Children's Chorus performs tonight at 8 , at Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St., Boston. Call 617-585-1260 for tickets, $12-$20.
Caption: IN TUNE: Below, from left, Boston Children's Chorus members Demetros Grimsley, 10, of Boston, Nick Gannon, 10, of Belmont, and Dakeria Fulks, 10, of Dorchester march to drumbeats as, right, training choir members Mackenzie Sweet, 11, 0f Newton, Itzel Rodriguez, 9, of Roslindale, and Elsa Garn, 11, of Roslindale, from left, rehearse a sonf at First and Second Churxh of Boston. STAFF PHOTOS BY RENEE DEKONA.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is
prohibited without permission.
People: Dailey, Darren
Section: THE EDGE
ISSN/ISBN: 07385854
Text Word Count 477
Copyright Boston Herald Library Jan 19, 2004
To view the article, click here.
AMBASSADORS OF HARMONY
Date: January 17, 2004 Page: A10 Section: Editorial
FOUR YEARS ago, Boston educator and activist Hubie Jones saw the Chicago Children's Choir perform and saw a vision of excellence and social diversity fulfilled. Jones says he once imagined that school desegregation would spark such outcomes in Boston. But today the schools are resegregated and music is too often seen as a frill, not a cultural force.
So Jones braided two ideas: learn from other cities and use special events to catalyze action. Based on the work of Jones and 90 city leaders, the dedication ceremony for the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge included a performance by the Children's Bridge Festival Chorus. This was the precursor to the founding of the Boston Children's Chorus last October. The chorus will sing Monday night at the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, part of a performance of the Chicago Children's Choir that will benefit their Boston peers. Or, as the invitation explains, the group "will launch a singing revolution on Martin Luther King Day that will leave no corner of the city untouched."
It is childish ambition in the best sense.
"It's a way to build community from shared joy and pride," says Muriel Heiberger, the chorus's executive director. Children ages 7 to 14 come from Boston's neighborhoods and suburbs. They work together. Their parents get to know one another. There is a concert choir for children with more experience and two training choirs. There is the power of the music - of being in a world where time and sound are used like paint. There is the education, learning to understand clefs, read notes, manage breathing, then translating these skill into singing and forging the singing into a performance.
Darren Dailey, the chorus's artistic director, points to the "strong texts" in the songs and the power of hearing them from children. Among the works the chorus will perform is a Shaker hymn called "How Can I Keep from Singing." Its first verse: "My life flows on in endless song; /Above earth's lamentation / I hear the sweet though far off song / That hails a new creation: / No storm can shake my inmost calm / While to that refuge clinging / It sounds an echo in my soul, / How can I keep from singing?"
Jones expects chorus members to become ambassadors, traveling to other cities and countries. Adults will have the delightful and important chance to take children and their talents seriously. And the whole city can join in, making philanthropic investments and working to ensure that schools - especially public schools - have real music education: teachers with time and resources, pianos and not just boom boxes. All Boston-area children should have the chance to sing.
Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company
