Rose Kennedy Greenway Opening Performance!

Today, Premier Choir was met with two great opportunities. Not only were we able to perform, but we were also able to experience the opening of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a very exciting event for the city of Boston. (for more information, visit http://www.rosekennedygreenway.org) We gathered at the main stage for the celebration at 10:00am and were met by our dear friends from the Boston Arts Academy, who joined us once again to share their impressive dancing skills. After a brief rehearsal in a lovely tent designated for BCC, we played a few rounds of some fun energizing games in order to get ourselves alive, awake, and ready to perform. Finally, it was time to take to the stage! We opened with Stephen Hatfield's "Uberlebensgroß" a dependable show-stopper. We tried some new choreography at the beginning of that piece which was enjoyable and fairly successful. We then performed "Dravidian Dithyramb" with the help of the BAA dancers, who performed beautifully as usual. Its always fun to collaborate with other groups, the more the merrier! Then we closed with a classic rendition of Ysaye Barnwell's, "We Are" which we've been performing since the 06-07 season. Our set was well recieved by the quaint but enthusiastic audience and overall, we had a great first official performance!

YME Performs at Blooming Arts!

BCC was once again represented this year at Blooming Arts, a annual event featuring youth art organizations in the the Greater Boston Area. On Saturday, September 27th, BCC's Young Men's Ensemble performed for the event. This marked the first official BCC performance for many of the young men in the ensemble and was a very exciting and fulfilling day for all! To learn more about Blooming Arts, visit: http://www.huntalternatives.org/index.cfm Additionally, an excerpt from the day's performance was posted to youtube.

Performance at MassPort Convention!

Guest Writer: Maggie Vo

September 22nd was a very exciting day! Ten singers from Premier Choir gathered at 9:00am at the Hynes Convention Center to sing the National Anthems of the U.S.A. and Canada at the Opening Ceremony for the MassPort Convention. We performed in a beautiful function room for an audience of at least 1000 all of whom seemed to enjoy our singing. This performance was the day after we returned from our weekend retreat, so some of us were feeling slightly under the weather, but we still pulled through, performed to the best of our abilities, and had a great time as always. Some social highlights were playing a fun game of "six questions" backstage before performing and getting to see each other on a Monday, a rarity.

Premier Retreat!

Guest Writer: Casey Accardi

On September 20th, Premier Choir gathered at BCC Central (at the ungodly hour of 7am) to embark on their journey to the Earthdance Retreat Center, the location for this years retreat. Our goal as a choir for the weekend could be summarized in one word: growth. We strived to grow as musicians and learn tons of repertoire, as well as to grow closer to each other and bond as a group. Both of these goals, in my opinion, were met.

Musically, we had an extremely successful weekend. Mr. TK managed to pack seven rehearsals into 32 hours (thirteen of which were spent sleeping/traveling!) without making us feel stressed or overworked. We powered through page after page of music, and had a handful of pieces at a perform-able level by the end of the weekend. The most exciting part of the weekend, however, was the opportunity to create/deepen friendships within the choir. We were delighted to welcome 10 new first-year Premier members to the choir this season, and had many opportunities to get to know them throughout the weekend. We played a bunch of fun bonding games, had a choir bonfire (with smores!), and plenty of time to socialize and relax with one another, resulting in a new found feeling of unity throughout the group. We were blessed to be able to do all this at Earthdance, a retreat center in the Berkshires, that strives to inspire the art and spirit of improvisation. The center is usually used by improvisational dance groups, which meant there was beautiful studio space for us to rehearse in. We loved the acoustics in the Umbrella Dance Studio and enjoyed the simplicity of the dorm rooms we slept in.

Overall, the weekend was a great success; we experienced even more growth than expected and were able to kick-start what will certainly be a super performance season!

Camp For Young Singers '08

Guest Writer: Cyrus Dahmubed

This year the Boston Children’s Chorus held its annual Camp for Young Singers on August 11-15. This camp is designed for singers who have been accepted into the training choirs of the BCC for the upcoming season. This year 37 children participated in camp and they are going to be by far the most impressive and successful group of young singers the chorus has ever seen! The transformation that the singers made between Monday and Friday can be called nothing less than astonishing. Led by Mrs. Michelle Adams, Ms. Whitney Simmonds, Ms. Sarah Haughton and Ms. Valerie Ross, many of the young musicians went from never having seen a piece of music to reading and understanding music and even learned the basics of conducting and notation!

The camp was coordinated and facilitated by Ms. Isabelle Darling and Mr. Ray Daniels, and this years camp mentors were all singers who had been in either Premier Choir or Young Men’s Voice Class for at least one year and who had applied for the position and had been accepted based on their musical excellence and leadership skills. With the help of the staff and mentors the young singers learned much more than just music skills, but also proper rehearsal behavior and valuable life lessons. These singers are now a step ahead of their peers who have been accepted into the BCC this year and who will not have the advantage of all the knowledge the young singers gained at camp. These singers truly are the next generation of the Boston Children’s Chorus; they are Boston’s newest ambassadors and will implement social change throughout the world through music.