I received my American Boychoir newsletter today via email (smart move for them to move into the digital age finally) and they will once again be performing at the ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) National conference, this year in Oklahoma. I recalled back to my days at ABS when I was lucky enough to have this same experience. This performance is the big time for the school. It is critical publicity in front of a very critical and demanding audience. A performance in this conference may not land a record deal (although I’m sure it has) but it provides exposure to choral conductors and music educators from around the country, many of whom can have a significant influence in recruitment efforts and ultimately fund raising. Of course musically, a good performance here guarantees a continued solid reputation for being one of the best boychoirs in the world. This year, ABS will join several other choirs who were chosen by means of a blind audition from hundreds of applicants around the US and the World.
There are a number of performances that have stuck in my mind as being significant for me while I was in the boychoir. Several performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington DC are among them. Our performance at the ACDA conference in 1989 in Louisville, KY was however one that I remember even beyond those. It was certainly one of our better performances but that’s not why I remember it. It’s because it was then, after hearing some of the other choirs and being around thousands of professional choral “fanatics” that I began to realize how this medium affected me on a deeper, more personal level. I didn’t begin to fully recognize or appreciate the significance of my boychoir experience until this single performance. We performed just a fraction of our standard repertoire for this audience but two encores were required to appease the crowd. I walked off that stage knowing that choral music would play a significant role in my life for years to come and it certainly did.
Things change, people change…people often change directions too. As it turned out, continuing down the path of music education was not necessarily my calling in life. For that matter, school in general was not my calling in life. Were it not for the incredibly tedious hours of biology, math, English and all the other random liberal arts requirements, I might have actually made it through collage. You know there is a problem though when you look at your marks for the semester and see 4.0 for all music related activities and classes and either drops or very low marks on everything else. Having succeeded in submersing myself in the field outside of school, I saw a career path that fully supported my musical ambitions but one that I would never be allowed to have without also knowing the basics of Algebra and the Periodic Table, neither of which I had any interest in what-so-ever. So, while I’ll never put finishing that degree completely out of the question, I’m in a good place now as a happy choral aficionado content bringing home a much bigger salary so I can buy the music I love to listen to.
So, while I’ve got you hooked on the topic, I’m going to post a video of a newer song from the group Libera. I’ve sort of made my peace with this group over the past year and come to appreciate more what they do as a choral organization (separate from the actual choir). It’s quite hard for me to classify Libera as a ‘real’ boychoir because it just isn’t. They are significantly supported, corrected, enhanced, and projected by some really incredible technology and an ingenious entrepreneur. ABS could learn a great deal from their business model. In a strict sense, Libera needs to be classified differently from the traditional boychoir like the American Boychoir or Vienna Boychoir. These facts however do not diminish what this choir does for the boys singing in it. Each of the talented soloists from this choir over the years has gone on, just like me, with a significant appreciation of music which in my mind is far more important than the ‘traditional vs. popular’ debate. There are plenty of critics out there who decry this group for what many times can sound like a glitzy over produced choir (with a LOT of help from technology) but it is often those same people criticizing who have been unable to achieve any level of significant success with their own groups. The bottom line in my opinion is not about sound (that’s important but in different ways) but it’s about having a sustainable organization that can promote, train, and educate young people in the art of choral music. Music (in whatever form) is a critical element of our society and if we fail to introduce new generations to the amazing creations of composers from the past and especially to those in the present, we are doing a disservice to everyone. Everyone and anyone can sing to some extent and choirs (from public schools to private schools like ABS) have many lessons to teach young people about working together, about creating art, and about sharing with each other. These are all values that humans need to survive in our complex world.
I went into all that because over the past year, I’ve regained contact with many of my peers from ABS. Our 20 year reunion is in a few weeks and unfortunately I won’t be able to attend. Looking over their histories though since ABS, I was not the only choirboy who was influenced greatly by being a part of ABS. A significant percentage of my peers are now music professionals, from conductors, to composers, to producers spanning the entire spectrum of the music industry from Hollywood to Carnegie Hall. Currently, a classmate who was in the grade below me is now one of the directors for the American Boychoir. He has come full circle from choirboy to conductor for the educational organization that likely gave him his start. That, to me, says a great deal about our experience and about the over all importance of music education.
Enjoy.
