By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Conductor James Bagwell is relentless as he guides his May Festival Youth Chorus through its first rehearsal on a Sunday afternoon in the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption.

James Bagwell directs the May Festival Youth Chorus in a rehearsal at Covington's Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

"More diction. Sing out. Don't be intimidated by the space," he calls out.

"Sopranos, sing more. It's always a surprise when you sing here for the first time."

"Lighten up, tenors."

"Take the 'r' out. R does not exist in choral music - except in choral hell," he says. He is kind but firm. They laugh, trying to shake out the cobwebs.

It's a wake-up call for these high schoolers, many of whom were at prom the night before. (One showed up still dressed in his tux.)

"It's a much more intense experience than in high school," says Meredith Hohe, 18, a student at Turpin High. "Everybody wants to be here for the common goal of making music. The music is challenging; it's for people who genuinely love to sing."

The Youth Chorus is one of four children's or youth choirs participating in this year's Cincinnati May Festival. Nationally, they are part of an unprecedented boom in young people's choruses.

Bagwell brings enthusiasm to rehearsal. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

"A lot of us refer to it as a children's choir explosion. Over the past 20 years, there has been this tremendous surge," says Rebecca Rottsolk of Port Townsend, Wash., chair of the children's choir committee of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).

When schools started cutting back music programs, community choral directors saw a need and began forming youth choirs. Immediately it became clear that the potential for success was huge.

"We ended up not even having to advertise," says Rottsolk, who founded the Northwest Girlchoir in 1982. Back then, there were few models in this country, but choral directors knew about stunning children's choirs in Scandinavia, particularly the Tapiola Choir of Finland.

Nation's largest

Now children's choirs nationwide are counted in the thousands. One of the country's most renowned is the Indianapolis Children's Choir, which has 1,760 school-aged children participating in 13 different groups.

IF YOU GO

• Today: 7 p.m., Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Covington. Sold out. • Friday: 8 p.m. Music Hall. "Encores & Premieres." James Conlon, conductor; May Festival Chorus, Robert Porco, director; Kristine Jepson, mezzo-soprano; Donnie Ray Albert, baritone; Cincinnati Children's Choir, Robyn Lana, director; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Beethoven, Coriolan Overture; Gian Carlo Menotti, Chorus from The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi; Benjamin Britten, Prelude to Act I of Gloriana; Alvin Singleton, Praisemaker; Franz Liszt, St. Stanislaus (world premiere). • Saturday: 8 p.m. Music Hall. "Russian Night." James Conlon, conductor; May Festival Chorus, Robert Porco, director; May Festival Youth Chorus, James Bagwell, director; Donnie Ray Albert, baritone; John Cheek, bass-baritone; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Shostakovich, Festive Overture, Op. 96; The Execution of Stepan Razin; Rachmaninoff, Three Russian Songs, Op. 41; Prologue and Coronation Scene from Boris Godunov. • Tickets: $11-$60. 381-3300 or www.mayfestival.com

"What's neat about it," says founder Henry Leck, "is it draws children from every side of the town ... They all come together with a common purpose, and that's their love of singing."

Coming together is the best thing about Laurie Wyant's choral program at Cincinnati's School for Creative and Performing Arts, which is participating in today's sold-out production of Benjamin Britten's Noah's Flood, a staged musical intended for adults and children.

"The most important thing is to see 70 young kids learning together, regardless of race or religion," says Wyant. "It unifies my children in an uncommon way."

Her choral program, the largest arts program at SCPA with 360 children in fourth through 12th grades, is highly regarded, and her students have collaborated many times with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Pops, May Festival and Cincinnati Opera.

Other schools may not be so lucky - music is often the first area to lose funding when districts need to slash budgets. But the chorus boom is not so much filling in music education gaps as it is creating a new and amazing medium - the children's choir sound, experts say. That, in turn, is resulting in a surge of new compositions for children's choirs, a publishing boom and even a flood of CDs.

"A few courageous pioneers from the Chicago Children's Choir, the Toronto Children's Choir and others showed us how beautifully young people could sing, that they were capable of learning great musical literature," says Karen L. Wolff, dean of the University of Michigan School of Music and pioneering founder of the children's choir program in 1983 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. "Those conductors were willing to teach others how to start and maintain choirs. Composers began to write some good music for them.

"It became as catching as measles."

Randall Wolfe, director of the Cincinnati Boychoir, agrees that "children's choirs can succeed and produce music that's done as professionally and musically as adult choirs."

His highly trained boy choir, a staple in Cincinnati concerts, will perform in the May Festival's Elijah Saturday night. The choir was, in fact, formed in 1965 to sing for the May Festival. In the past year, three of his charges have gone on to sing with the world's finest boy choir, the Vienna Boys Choir. In March, the two choirs sang together on Music Hall's stage.

His and other area children's choirs have high standards, often rehearsing twice a week. Why would kids want to trade after-school soccer games and TV for choir practice?

"There's a dynamic of the group; there's the pleasure of making something together," says the May Festival's Bagwell. "It's a very personal kind of expression - you're dealing with words, which is important at any age, but particularly at that age."

Laughter mixes with music

After an hour of rehearsal in the Cathedral Basilica, the sound of Bagwell's chorus is more heavenly and refined. The singers are serious, and working hard - but there is plenty of laughter, too.

For tenor Victor Burkhart, 18, a student at Monroe High, singing is a spiritual experience.

"No matter what kind of music it is, there's always a connection with God that you feel through the meter and verse," he says.

Jeremy Williams, 17, a junior at Walnut Hills High - who also plays piano, clarinet, oboe and English horn - does it because he loves the challenge.

"It has a high level of music that's more difficult than what we study in school," he says. "I feel that our director gives us the proper motivation to perform at a higher level than most teenagers would do."

For many kids, it's a support group - young singers of a like mind, who feel the same way about classical music.

Indeed, singing in the Cincinnati Children's Choir at CCM has helped Rachel Lang, 13, find her niche, says her mom Jackie Lang, of Montgomery.

"I'm a firm believer in it," she says. "Rachel has tried soccer, basketball and tennis, but she is definitely into the fine arts. When she joined the CCM choir, they welcomed her. ...It was such a wonderful experience to see her sing ... it was like a rose starting to bloom."

Cincinnati Children's Choir, which performs Friday with the May Festival, "gives kids a place to come and explore and experience, and they take that back and share it in their classrooms, and become a leader," says director Robyn Lana.

"There are so many places to sing as adults and just enjoy it," she says, mentioning the May Festival Chorus, church choirs and community choruses.

"Even though we don't think of American culture as a singing culture, it so influences so much of what public crowds do," she says. "They sing at peace rallies, at the ballpark. Singing works its way into everyday life. If we didn't have people who could do it, society would miss it."

Where is this youth choir explosion going?

"The wonderful thing about music is you never arrive; you're always on the journey," says Washington's Rottsolk.

E-mail jgelfand@enquirer.com