Bay State Banner
By Tierney McAfee
December 11, 2008
The Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC) has a lot to celebrate this holiday season.
For the first time ever, the group’s annual hour-long Martin Luther King Jr. Day concert will be broadcast live nationally from Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory.
According to BCC Artistic Director Anthony Trecek-King, the Jan. 19, 2009 concert will be the first of its kind to be nationally syndicated in the U.S.
Mia Ferguson, 15, a member of BCC’s elite Premier Chorus, hopes the upcoming sixth annual concert will unite viewers across the country.
“We’ve seen such a divide in the country with the election and I think it’s really incredible that this concept that we have of making change through music will be seen across the country,” Ferguson said. “It’s important for people to see that everyone can feel the same message and get the sense that a change can be made, and that we can all work together to make something beautiful.”
This year’s event is also unique because it will take place the day before President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20, which Trecek-King feels will bring a special spirit to the show.
“This is what Dr. King was fighting for. Obama’s presidency is a symbol for equality,” said Trecek-King, who has been with the choir for more than three years. “I think for a lot of people, there’s this feeling of Dr. King’s dream coming together. You can celebrate the president and you can celebrate Dr. King; it’s all linked.”
The event, hosted by special guest Louis Gossett Jr., will feature two BCC choirs, the Young Men’s Ensemble and the Premier Chorus, as well as performances from the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and dancers from the Boston Arts Academy.
In keeping with the dual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the inauguration, one of the songs the Premier Chorus will perform is “Change We Can Believe In,” which was written for the Obama campaign.
Premier Chorus member Xana Turner-Owens, 16, says she is looking forward to celebrating King’s legacy, as well as the “excitement and possibilities that the election represents.”
“For me, the election has sparked a new excitement about this time and what youth in particular are capable of,” she said.
The BCC aims to spark similar sentiments in others through its concert. The annual event is intended not only to reinforce the chorus’ mission of social change by honoring the slain civil rights icon, but also to show its singers and their families that they too can be an example of diversity and tolerance — as well as a major force of change.
“It’s our mission to bring people from different backgrounds together,” Trecek-King said. “Our choir has people who live below the poverty line and people whose families make [hundreds of] thousands of dollars a year and … they really do become friends and hang out on the weekends. And I think that’s really special.”
The event will also commemorate the chorus’ fifth season. Over the years, the BCC has grown from 20 kids who met to sing together into the mission-based group it is today, with nine choirs of children from grades 2 to 12. Members hail from the city and from suburbs like Harvard, Oxford, Brockton, Randolph and Weston.
Turner-Owens, who has been with the chorus since its founding in 2003, says this is the Premier Chorus’ year to shine.
“We’ve been doing this concert since the choir started and it’s been really cool to watch us grow,” she said. “We’re finally taking ownership of MLK Day. I’m looking forward to seeing the final outcome.”
Paul Jordan Talbot, 17, a Men’s Ensemble member and one of the few male members of the Premier Choir, says BCC helps connect people from different backgrounds not only within the choir but also through their concerts.
“We perform a lot of concerts that are accessible to everyone, and this one is no exception,” Talbot said. “We’ve done shows that range from places like Roxbury Community College to Faneuil Hall and Jordan Hall, so we really have this broad spectrum that allows anyone to come see our concerts.”
BCC also celebrates diversity through its music selections. Their songs run the gamut, from spirituals to modern arrangements of classical pieces to Spanish songs.
Recently, the group has been focusing on Arabic tunes because they will tour the Middle Eastern nation of Jordan this summer.
“We definitely try to use our music and our community to make a change in our city’s attitude toward the Middle East,” Ferguson said. “We’ve been in touch with an Iraqi choir, and that was definitely inspired by the MLK Day celebration because we’re trying to make change within the now and not getting stuck in the past.”
Trecek-King conducts the Young Men’s Ensemble and the Premier Chorus, and chose a number of jazz and gospel songs for the choir. One group favorite is Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday.”
Trecek-King, or “Mr. T-K” to his singers, selected much of the music for the concert based on his research of a variety of popular ’60s and ’70s music.
“I wanted to find some sort of historical basis as to what was going on during that time, and then I looked at some of the stuff that’s happening now,” he said. “It’s difficult to find pieces that are accessible and well-written that work for a youth choir. We try to walk the boundary between accessible and artistically viable.”
Trecek-King says he hopes the music of the Boston Children’s Chorus will reach a very diverse audience.
“Every culture has music and everyone in some way is touched by music,” he said. “It has an inner rhythm that speaks to people beyond the words. If you sing with the intent of the piece and the emotion of the piece people get it. It’s really wonderful to be moved to tears or moved to laughter or moved to smile or moved to groove with music.”
The Boston Children’s Chorus Martin Luther King Day Concert will be held Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. in Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory. The chorus will also perform with the Back Bay Ringers this Saturday, Dec. 13, at the “’Tis the Season” concert at Faneuil Hall, which starts at 10:30 a.m.
For tickets and more information, visit www.bostonchildrenschorus.org.
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Lou Gossett Jr to Host Raising the Roof 2009
Press Release
September 8, 2008
Contact: Sewee Entertainment - Tim Voit - 843-224-3444
Sewee Entertainment
Academy Award Winning Actor Louis Gossett, Jr. to host “Raising the Roof!” - MLK Tribute Concert
Sewee Entertainment announced today that Academy Award Winning Actor Louis Gossett, Jr. will host “Raising the Roof!” – a one-hour televised Tribute Concert honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mr. Gossett, Jr., perhaps best known for his performance in the ground breaking 1977 television series “Roots” for which he won an Emmy and his Oscar winning performance as the hard charging drill sergeant in the movie, “An Officer and a Gentleman.” An enduring presence for more than five decades, Mr Gossett ranks as one of the most respected and beloved actors of stage, screen, and television. In addition to his Oscar he is the recipient of multiple Golden Globes and People’s Choice Awards
His performances have connected him with fans worldwide. In 2006 he founded the Eracism Foundation, which works to develop and produce entertainment that brings awareness and education to issues such as racism, ignorance and societal apathy.
“Raising the Roof” is produced through a partnership involving The Boston Children’s Chorus and WCVB-TV, the highly respected Hearst-Argyle TV station in Boston. Past hosts have included “Good Morning America” Anchor Robin Roberts as well as ABC News Anchor/Correspondents Deborah Roberts and Ron Claiborne.
The event is fittingly filmed at The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. It was on the steps of that building that a young woman named Coretta Scott met an aspiring Boston University doctoral candidate named Martin Luther King, Jr.
The uplifting and energized one-hour concert will be taped before a live audience and will feature the talented singers of the Boston Children’s Chorus along with the Young Peoples Chorus of New York City. The event also offers a series of multi-cultural reflections exploring the on-going impact of Dr. King.
WCVB-TV will handle production. Executive Producer Elizabeth Cheng and Producer Stella Gould created the National Primetime Emmy-nominated Boston Pops concert, “Pops Goes the Fourth,” which aired on the Arts and Entertainment Network for ten years. Cheng has also executive produced numerous specials for A&E and the History Channel. Sewee Entertainment will handle Ad Sales & Syndication.
“Raising the Roof” is being offered to broadcast TV stations on barter terms 6/6. The special is available live on the MLK holiday, January 19th at 7-8 PM, or thereafter until Feb 28, 2009.
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Boston Children’s Chorus to Perform at International Choral Festival in Oregon
Press Release
June 16, 2008
Contact: Mary Ann Brennan Newcomb (617) 778-2242, ext. 230
Sewee Entertainment
The Premier Choir of the Boston Children's Chorus will perform from June 24 – 28, 2008 at the annual Pacific International Children's Choir Festival (PICCFEST) in Eugene, Oregon. Boston Children's Chorus was chosen to represent the Northeast at the Eleventh Anniversary Gala Concert I Dream a World. The event will also feature choral singers from Oregon, Georgia, Hawaii, California, Iowa, Minnesota and Tennessee in a gathering of some 300 talented singers under the direction of Bob Chilcott, one of the most prolific contemporary composers of choral music in England.
The program will include songs by Chilcott, Peter Robb, Eleanor Daly, and Peter Leek.
The 12 to 18 year old Boston-based singers are the premier performing and touring group of the internationally recognized Boston Children's Chorus. They will spend a week on the campus of the University of Oregon making music on a par with any youth music festival in the world. PICCFEST is a conscious effort to promote generosity, gratitude, mutual respect and enjoyment, while achieving musical excellence.
"We aspire to be Ambassadors of Harmony wherever we go," said Executive Director Annette Rubin.
"In seeking artistic excellence we welcome opportunities to collaborate with other groups, gaining new skills and collaborating with others. Providing such experiences for young people is a way to expose them to varied cultures and geographies that they may often not have the opportunity to experience on their own," added Anthony Trecek -King, Artistic Director.
The Boston Children's Chorus is a multi-racial, multi- ethnic arts education organization that uses music as a powerful tool for social change. The children sing, perform and serve as ambassadors of harmony for the new Boston, appearing locally, nationally and internationally.
The BCC began almost 5 years ago as a pilot program with 20 singers. Today, it has almost 300 singers in nine choirs of different levels of experience in four locations. Its premier choir, which draws from Greater Boston, has toured to Mexico, Japan and Chicago. It has sung with the Boston Pops at its July 4th concert on the Esplanade in Boston and performed at the Trinity Church in a concert to welcome new Boston School Superintendent Carol Johnson. Other appearances include the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the inauguration of Governor Deval Patrick and the opening of the baseball season at Fenway Park. It has performed with the Boston Pops, Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, American Boychoir, Soweto Gospel Choir, Westminster Choir College, Chicago Children's Choir and Young People's Chorus of New York City. Its annual televised Martin Luther King, Jr. Concert has become a tradition for celebrating the legacy of Dr. King on that national holiday.
To view the release, click here.
Taking kids' voices seriously
The Boston Globe
By Jeremy Eichler, Globe Staff
June 8, 2008
Since its founding in 2003, the Boston Children's Chorus has grown from a 20-singer pilot program to a group that serves almost 300 kids, ages seven to 18 years old, singing in nine different choirs. It was founded by the Boston education activist Hubie Jones with the hope of bridging racial divides through its multi-ethnic makeup. These days, the chorus actively recruits in the Boston schools and also draws kids from over 50 towns and cities across greater Boston, with half of the children coming from families making $50,000 or less. Auditions are ongoing throughout the summer.
But BCC aspires to be more than a feel-good, bridge-building project, according to Anthony Trecek-King, the dynamic 32-year-old conductor who is completing his second year as the chorus's artistic director. He takes the chorus's musical ambitions at least as seriously as its social mission. This week he has been leading rehearsals for the group's season-closing concert but on Monday afternoon he could be found in his South End office, where contemporary Baltic choral music was pouring out of the stereo. He lowered the volume and spoke with a visitor.
Q. How are the social and artistic missions of this group integrated?
A. At the outset, many people said you can't do this. You can't make the organization more open - socially, economically, racially, religiously - and still be really good artistically. But I don't see it as a choice. The choir has to be good in order to achieve some of the social outcomes. We also want to start locally and see if we can get this movement to go beyond just Boston to be kind of a national thing, where everyone is constantly thinking about providing greater access to the arts.
Q. How does the chorus's mission play itself out in practice?
A. We have kids whose parents make well over six figures, and kids who are living below the poverty line, but when we're in rehearsal, you can't tell who's who. They become friends and they hang out on weekends. And when they're drawn together, then their parents are forced to interact too. You actually see this thing happening on a daily basis.
Q. Does singing in a chorus make this possible in a way that's different than, say, playing in an orchestra?
A. Yes. It's easier to break down barriers because you're using your voice and communicating at such a primitive level. So choirs can form communities very quickly, in a different way than with instrumentalists. Plus, all cultures sing - but not all cultures play the violin. So you can sing a piece from Africa, Asia, or South America - and then use those as jumping-off points. But what I love and adore is when I eventually pick out "Lift Thine Eyes" from Mendelssohn's "Elijah" - or something from Mozart's Requiem, or a Bach cantata - and the kids just love it. To me this is when you've had some success. A few years earlier, many of the kids never would have touched this stuff.
Q. Is your goal to produce future professional singers?
A. My hope is that by the time they're finished with us and they graduate, they are capable of going into music, but that's not our point. To me, you should only pursue a career in music if you have to do it, and not because you want to do it. A lot of kids choose it because they want to, and that's when they fizzle out.
Q. How did you choose to go into music?
A. At University of Nebraska [at] Omaha, I wanted to be an engineer but I also took some music classes and the chair of the department called me and said, 'Have you ever seen anyone like you conduct?' I said, 'No, I haven't. In all my days, I've never seen an African-American conductor.' He told me I had some talent in the area and I should consider it. That planted the seed, and I eventually explored it further. I kept trying not to do it, but it pulled me back in!
Q. The lack of diversity in orchestras and their audiences continues to be a tremendous problem in classical music. Do you see enough being done to address this?
A. I think it's very important that we figure out some way to break through that barrier. We do need to do more, but I don't have that answer. I think it's about building deep relationships with the communities we're trying to reach. The chorus plays a part in that.
Q. How do you recruit, and do you find the kids to be responsive?
A. We go into the schools. . . . When I walk into a classroom in Dorchester or Roxbury, and the kids look at me, there's an instant connection. I don't have to break down some sort of resistance to it. It makes it a bit easier to bridge gaps and so on, but there's also a certain danger in becoming known as 'that guy who bridges gaps.' I'm a musician first.
Q. What in your opinion has been lost by taking music out of the public schools to the extent that we have?
A. We've lost a ton. The Boston Children's Chorus shouldn't exist. There shouldn't be a reason for us. Every public school should have arts. You need academics, athletics, and arts to create a complete human being. When you start taking out one or two of those things, we lose something tremendous. I think this lack of creativity and this lack of completeness is going to be a real problem that will show up once these kids are graduating and becoming part of the workforce. . . . I believe in music's ability to transform lives. It transformed my life. And when I go to a school where there is very little music, or no music, I just wonder - why would a student want to go to school if there's nothing extra to hang onto?
Q. The chorus has also been involved in commissioning composers to write new works for the kids. Are young people more open to challenging contemporary music than adults?
A. Yes, absolutely. When I work with kids, if I love the piece and I come with conviction, then they buy into it. Even if they don't quite get it, they're willing to try. And often if you're working with adults, that's not necessarily the case - there can be a lot of push-back. Kids don't really see limitations in the same way. It's very inspiring. I look at what the older kids can do as the equivalent of what adults can do, and even beyond that. Ultimately, I want the group to be looked upon as of one the great choruses of the United States, not one of the great children's choruses of the United States.
Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
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Nine choirs of Boston Children’s Chorus to sing at Strand Theater
Press Release
June 16, 2008
Contact: Mary Ann Brennan Newcomb
(617) 778-2242, ext. 230
mbrennannewcomb@bostonchildrenschorus.org
WHO: Boston Children’s Chorus’ nine choirs, including nearly 300 singers
WHAT: Year-end Concert – "Rhythm of Culture"
WHERE: Strand Theater, 543 Columbia Road, Dorchester, MA 02125
WHEN: June 14, 2008 from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Co-sponsored by the City of Boston, this special end-of-the-year concert is free and open to the public. Diverse cultures from Africa, Asia, Europe & the Americas will be musically represented through drumming and rhythms.
The Boston Children’s Chorus is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic arts education organization dedicated to promoting artistic excellence and social change. The children, ages 7-18 years old, come from over 50 Greater Boston cities and towns. They sing, perform and serve as ambassadors of harmony for the new Boston, appearing locally, nationally and internationally.
The BCC began five years ago as a pilot program with 20 singers. Today, it has nearly 300 singers ages 7-18 in nine choirs of different levels of experience in four locations. Its premier choir, which draws from Greater Boston, has toured to Mexico, Japan and Chicago. It has sung with the Boston Pops at its July 4th concert on the Esplanade in Boston and performed at the Trinity Church in a concert to welcome new Boston School Superintendent Carol Johnson. Other appearances include the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the inauguration of Governor Deval Patrick and the opening of the baseball season at Fenway Park. It has performed with the Boston Pops, Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, American Boychoir, Soweto Gospel Choir, Westminster Choir College, Chicago Children’s Choir and Young People’s Chorus of New York City. Its annual televised Martin Luther King, Jr. Concert has become a tradition for celebrating the legacy of Dr. King on that national holiday.
To view the release, click here.
Song in Their Hearts
Boston Children’s Chorus gives voice to city youth
Bay State Banner
By Talia Whyte
May 8, 2008
Artistic director Anthony Trecek-King (right) leads the Boston Children's Chorus Premier Choir in concert. Students say that "Mr. T-K," as his young charges call him, goes above and beyond just teaching music. He says he tries to "make them good citizens who are goal-oriented" and prepared to succeed.
On a typical afternoon at the South End offices of the Boston Children's Chorus, the voices of children are everywhere — in the songs the kids practice with the chorus' teaching fellows; in the boisterous peals of laughter that fill rehearsal rooms and accompany recaps of what happened in school that day; even in the heads of parents sitting in the waiting room, thinking about what to make for dinner.
For the youth and their families, the Boston Children's Chorus is all about voices — the music they can make, the community they can create and the social healing they can provide.
"We are a family here," said Mary Ann Brennan Newcomb, BCC's director of development. "We have a social mission here to bring down the social barriers and bring together kids and their families from different backgrounds and racial identities for the common cause of tolerance and understanding."
Since its inception five years ago, the chorus has become the city's leading educational organization for uniting youth with the power of song, bringing together children in grades 2-12 to serve as ambassadors for the city through their performances, both locally and internationally.
The chorus is the brainchild of longtime community activist Hubie Jones, who decided after seeing a similar choir in Chicago that it was time for Boston to have its own. When it began, the chorus had fewer than 50 participants. Today, it boasts nearly 300 singers in nine different choirs, ranging in age from 7 to 18.
This is a particularly emotional year for the chorus, as three of its original members will soon be graduating high school. Sherylynn Sealy, 17, president of the Premier Choir, a program for advanced singers, will be graduating from Shrewsbury High School and attending Northeastern University in the fall.
"I love doing this," Sealy said. "Anyone who has the opportunity to do this should do it. We get to travel everywhere to perform and meet a lot of interesting people."
The chorus performs at more than 50 events per season, including recent trips to Japan, Mexico and Chicago. They have also performed at a number of notable local events, including the inauguration of Gov. Deval Patrick, the Boston Pops Orchestra's July 4 celebrations at the Esplanade and the welcoming concert for Boston Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Carol Johnson. Many of the singers are now preparing to perform at a music festival in Oregon.
Their performances have even attracted the attention of heads of state — King Abdullah II of Jordan, who attended a recent performance by the Premier Choir at the Harvard Club, is very supportive of the chorus' work.
While the opportunity to travel and meet famous people is certainly a bonus to being in the chorus, for many of the singers, the highlight of membership is the chance to interact with other young people that they wouldn't normally meet. The chorus' singers hail from more than 50 different cities and towns in the Greater Boston area, representing a wide variety of racial, religious and economic backgrounds.
"The chorus is really interesting," said Jaleel Johnson, 14, of Dedham, an original chorus member who joined five years ago. "I get to meet new people from all over the city. Being part of this is fun, and it gives me something constructive to do with my time."
A member of both the Premier and Young Men's choirs, Johnson must balance his singing with the demands of Pop Warner football and keeping up his grades in school.
While school and other extracurricular activities are important for the chorus' members, many agree that they are pushed to practice and perform their best by artistic director Anthony Trecek-King, or "Mr. T-K" to his young singers.
"What is so great about these kids is that they are such hard workers," Trecek-King said. "We have been working on a lot of the psychology behind the music. We don't just talk about music; we also talk about life in general. Many of the kids come from stressful environments. What I do here is try to make them good citizens who are goal-oriented."
It's a mission shared by chorus members' parents, many of whom engage in fundraising for chorus trips and provide transportation to performances around the city.
Joel Piton is the father of 8-year-old Courtney Piton, who is about to complete her year in the Treble Choir, a group for beginners. Piton travels from Randolph every Tuesday afternoon so that his daughter can participate.
"Courtney has aspirations to be a musician," Piton said, a guitarist in his own band. "She sings and plays instruments. The choir gives her structure."
The chorus is now holding auditions for new singers to join for the next performance season, beginning in September.
Dwijuana Reed, 15, of Dorchester hopes more youth from Boston will want to share the experiences of making new friends and using music as an instrument for social change in the community.
"I look forward to coming here everyday," Reed said. "I feel like I am making a difference in my life."
For more information about the Boston Children's Chorus, including auditions, please call 617-778-2242 or visit www.bostonchildrenschorus.org.
Copyright Banner Publications Inc
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"Sing for the Earth" Concert
West Roxbury music executive to sing with Boston Children’s Chorus
Press Release
April 29, 2008
Vocal music is part of West Roxbury executive Annette Rubin's daily life. As executive director of the Boston Children's Chorus, she is involved every day in program planning, fundraising, marketing and organizational development of the five-year-old organization's nine choirs in four different locations in Boston. But on May 18th as a member of the Mystic Chorale she'll be singing with the BCC as well.
The much anticipated event is the "Sing for the Earth" Concert on Sunday, May 18, at 4:00 p.m. in Converse Hall at Tremont Temple, 88 Tremont St., Boston. Rubin will be one of the Mystic Chorale's adult singers joining with dozens of Boston Children's Chorus singers in a program that will include drums, pageantry, costumes, giant puppets and a wealth of different types of songs to heal earth and soul and what do you get?
Audience involvement is a tradition of the chorale, and this concert will be no different. Mystic Chorale director and founder, Nick Page, has put together a kind of "Earth Pops" that all can join in to share in the spirit of healing the earth and bringing people together in song. There will be a pageant of huge puppets, banners and singers in costumes celebrating the Earth. During the first half of the concert, the Chorale will go through a moving repertoire of Earth-based songs that includes tunes from Lyle Lovett, Joni Mitchell, Willie Dixon, Monty Python, and José Luis Orozco, among others.
In the second half, the Boston Children's Chorus, directed by Anthony Trecek-King, will join the Mystic Chorale, with a more serious set of music celebrating the Navajo tradition of "I Walk In Beauty," and Nick Page's own "Love the Earth," with its hard driving Native American drum beat throughout. Like the Mystic Chorale, the Boston Children's Chorus has a philosophy of bringing about positive social change through music, focusing particularly on youth development, social healing, and community building for children (and their families) from throughout Boston.
The Boston Children's Chorus has grown from a pilot project of 20 singers in 2003, to now almost 300 young people. The choirs participating in this collaborative concert are the Concert choir and Intermediate level choirs. Boston Children's Chorus is currently conducting auditions for the 2008-09 season and welcomes all children who love to sing.
The Mystic Chorale, founded by Nick Page in 1990, performs throughout the Boston area, sponsors community outreach and school-based music programs, and has toured internationally and throughout the US, including Germany in 2002, Quebec in 2003, Costa Rica in 2004, New York City in 2005 and 2007, and in the summer of 2006, a tour of Ireland.
Tickets, which are available at the door, are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors.
Available Online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/31435.
Copyright Banner Publications Inc
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Choirs keep MLK's dream alive in song
The Boston Globe
By Linda Laban, Globe Correspondent
January 23, 2008
Nearly 100 children and teenagers from the Boston Children's Chorus and Chicago Children's Choir lined up onstage at Jordan Hall Monday, each wearing a red blazer and black pants. On cue, television cameras were in action and a glorious harmonic murmur rolled out.
Backed by only two tabla players, the fifth annual Martin Luther King Jr. concert, which was televised live on WCVB-TV (Channel 5), began with the hypnotic South African folk song "Tshotsholoza."
The choir then split, leaving some of the Chicago singers to perform a haunting a cappella rendition of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." Though somber, this version of the song - about racially motivated lynching - lost the pained mourning captured in Holiday's bluesy paean; but then, she had witnessed that strange fruit firsthand.
There were plenty of pauses for serious thought during this Martin Luther King Jr. Day memorial celebration, which the delightful host, ABC News anchor Ron Claiborne, said was not just about honoring a great African-American, but about "honoring a great human being." Governor Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas Menino were in the audience, adding a poignant political presence.
The atmosphere was somber as the BCC debuted a new work, "Dreams," which transcribed the words of African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar into a hard, staccato choral piece accompanied by piano. More traditional devotional songs had elements of Southern spirituals and European baroque and were backed at various points by a band, horn and string sections, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's principal harpist, Ann Hobson Pilot.
The celebration brightened when several dancers from Boston Arts Academy mixed interpretive and traditional Indian dance in the sassy "Dravidian Dithyramb" and in a medley of Stax Records soul and funk, which celebrated what Claiborne said was "the first racially integrated studio."
The concert's theme of "Remembering Yesterday, Inspiring Tomorrow" was underscored by several testimonials from people old enough to remember yesterday. One, however, was not. Nine-year-old Christina Yee said that she attended an ethnically mixed school and that she was living King's dream of a unified, multiracial society.
King's mentor, Gandhi, so profoundly said, "Be the change you seek in your world." Singing about unity together seemed a good start. But only a start.
Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
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King legacy finds a youthful voice
The Boston Globe
By Marc Larocque, Globe Correspondent
January 20, 2008
Powered by granola bars and bottled water and doted on by car-pooling mothers, these young singers are ambassadors for the city, working to promote change.
In 2004, they preceded a speech by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. When the city's new superintendent of schools arrived from Memphis, they greeted her. They have toured Mexico and Japan.
Recently, they hosted Czech choristers and welcomed King Abdullah of Jordan.
Tomorrow they will take center stage at the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall to sing in the fifth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Concert. With the theme "Remember Yesterday, Inspiring Tomorrow," it is billed as the climax of the chorus's season and will be broadcast on WCVB-TV (Channel 5).
And just who are they? They call themselves BCC, short for the Boston Children's Chorus.
Their history began with one man, Hubie Jones, who came here to study social work at Boston University in 1955. The next year, he visited Jordan Hall, where he first heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak.
"I'll never forget that day," Jones said. "I was sitting right in the middle of the orchestra section. [King] just set me on fire. It was one of the most unbelievable speeches I've ever heard. It filled me with hope and pride, and I made a commitment to social change in this country."
Inspired by King, Jones went on to work for racial justice and the quality of life in the city.
It was 10 years ago that Jones first listened to the Chicago Children's Choir and was "blown away by a very diverse group of young people, high school kids singing at a level of artistic excellence."
"I felt like Boston needed a diverse chorus group to lead them to excellence as the result of good instruction," Jones said.
So he founded the Boston Children's Chorus. He recruited about 100 children, found an artistic director and other staffers, and rehearsals started in 2003.
"They would serve as ambassadors for the city, playing at public as well as private events," he said.
Then he decided to invite the Chicago Children's Choir to join forces in Boston for the King holiday in 2004 - and they have returned every year since.
"We want people to know that we have to do things on MLK Day that are reflective and powerful," he said.
The Boston chorus now has several choirs, with about 300 members from more than 60 neighborhoods in the city and suburbs, representing a range of incomes, religions, and cultures. The children, ages 12 to 18, perform 40 to 50 programs a year.
"We never turn anyone away who can't pay," said Mary Ann Brennan, director of development and marketing for the nonprofit group. "Some people only pay $3 a month. Some people don't pay at all. Money never stops someone from being in the chorus."
Today, many families involved believe that the Boston chorus embodies the ideals of King.
Near the end of a recent weeknight rehearsal, mothers of chorus members waited in the foyer of the Shawmut Avenue headquarters, where the chorus moved last July from its previous home on Chauncey Street. One mother brought a cheese pizza for her hungry children, and shared it with others.
"Some of us have developed really good friendships through this," said Kerry Thompson of Melrose, whose 14-year-old daughter, Grace, is in the premier choir. "A lot of these kids now go to each other's plays and sleep over at each other's houses. This concert [tomorrow] captures that spirit of love in a way that's hard to describe."
For the concert, Grace will sing "Dravidian Dithyramb," a composition that proclaims unity and combines a drum beat from northern India with a melody from southern India.
Recalling previous Martin Luther King Day concerts, her mother said, "people are getting on their feet and clapping. . . . It reminds me of the 'We Shall Overcome' days."
Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
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