This is a familiar situation to me. My home city has at least eight choirs purporting to be the National this or the Australian that, when they are actually based entirely in one city. The name gives them connotations of quasi-official status, or at least a pre-eminence that only some of them truly deserve.

John and Simon - How odd that you're both on the line with this, and you're thousands of miles apart (John relatively close in Blacksburg, VA - at least, relatively close to me, even though it is a five-hour haul from Northern Virginia - and Simon, you're out Down Under!).  Simon, your comment brings up a somewhat painful similar experience I had for a while as the President of the Washington DC Chapter of the "National Association of Church Musicians," formerly Choral Conductors' Guild (CCG).  I joined because a friend of mine was a member and the goals of the organization were unexceptionable, worthy even.  However, moving from CCG to NACM prompted a series of concerns on my part.  Y'see, the organization had been founded in California back some 50 years or more ago, and of the ten chapters in the "national" organization, exactly one was east of the Rocky Mountains - which left a lot of country unoccupied, at least as far as this organization was concerned.  In spite of efforts on my part to get the "national" organization to try to address this by at least creating regional chapters in the intervening space as a building block to eventual local chapters, I might as well have been whistling in the wind.  (And to my mind, this raised some serious questions about the seriousness of the organization as a whole.)  This is a fairly common phenomenon, in my judgment - yet another "national" organization (although truly so) fell into the same trap - a senior leadership that was very comfortable in what had been happening, with no true vision of how to build the organization, an unwillingness to truly and seriously entertain proposals to either change the direction or to energize the organization - and membership was being lost on a regular basis, which was continually bemoaned.  Finally, I let my membership lapse in the former and I am no longer active in the latter organization.  There oughta be a law - but of course there can't be - against organizations using the title "national" unless and until they truly are.  I don't care what they call themselves:  to me, John, this business of a children's chorus calling itself "national" is mostly for advertising purposes as you suggest - for the purposes of having a "cachet" ("Oh, look, Johnny and Janey are in the NATIONAL Children's Chorus - not some local, rinky-dink group!").  Irrespective of the title, such organizations tend to have one purpose in mind:  suck dollars out of your pocket.  I am perhaps being grossly unfair either to the organization itself or to its intended purposes - but I would run, not walk, far, far away from it!

 

Chantez bien!

 

Ron

As a person living in LA who has founded and run a children's choir and teaches music in the elementary schools, I follow the children's choir scene fairly closely here.  I have heard this group in the past and, at that time, the focus was more like the English cathedral choirs, but using girls AND boys to sing the treble part of major works with 'ringer' adults on the TB or ATB parts.  To me, this is NOT a children's choir and I was not impressed.  I have colleagues who have worked with this group teaching theory.  I also have a classroom teacher at one of my schools whose son sang with them for a year and gave it up, as the demands for regular rehearsal time were extensive.  The amount they charge for concerts are way over-priced, so I haven't gone of late--even more expensive than the LA Children's Choir, which, after all, has quite a reputation.  Perhaps I will 'bite the bullet' and go see what they sound like this spring.  As far as the 'national' aspect of this choir is concerned, I have no idea how they make that happen from coast to coast.

 

Eloise Porter

voice101(a)gmail.com

 

These are all great points, and as someone with experience with the National Children's Chorus, I would like to address some of them.  In 2009, the Paulist Choristers became the National Children's Chorus, relaunching its presence in New York City, with the goal of becoming inclusive and providing a top-quality educational resource for children in New York and Los Angeles to start (expansion to a 3rd city is in the plans).  Unlike the Paulist Choristers style of performing unison soprano with hired altos, tenors and basses, the National Children's Chorus is indeed a real children's chorus, now with nearly 400 students in 12 different levels (ages 5 to 17), singing mostly treble-only literarture in parts, commissioning and presenting world premiere performances of new works written specifically for children's chorus.  This June at a sold-out performance at The Broad Stage, the ensemble will sing a new work by a Los Angeles Philharmonic Composing Fellow, currently listed on the LA Phil and Broad Stage websites.  To think that the Paulist Choristers had only a unison choir of 20 singers in Los Angeles just 5 years ago makes what the NCC has done even that much more impressive, and the lives of students that are being enriched are yielding spectacular results.  Graduates from the program have now been accepted at top schools around the country, such as Juilliard, Curtis, USC, UCLA, and most recently, an NCC student was the only soprano in the nation accepted early action to the vocal program at Northwestern University.  While the NCC does not have the consistent history of existence of the Los Angeles Children's Chorus yet (since it is only 5 years old in its current structure), it has produced extraordinary results in a very short amount of time, and has received excellent feedback from many first-rate professionals it collaborates with, who continue to spread the excitement of what is happening at the NCC.  While the National Children's Chorus is certainly a lofty name, the management of the organization is committed to meeting and exceeding the expectations that come along with it, both from an educational and an artistic point of view.  As support for the organization grows, both through the commitment of the esteemed individuals who continue to join its Honorary Board and staff, to the building of the group's infrastructure and resources, the NCC hopes to provide the local and national community with a superior vocal product, while inspiring the musical aspirations of its students, many of whom are on scholarship. 

 

For more information on the National Children's Chorus, please visit www.nationalchildrenschorus.com, and sign up for its monthly newsletter that details the exciting developments coming to fruition.