|
The Story of the Evanston Children’s Choir by Gary Geiger, Founder and Director
How This All Started
I am a pianist. All of my formal musical training is as a pianist. The unfortunate thing about trying to be a professional pianist is that there are very few professional ensemble positions for a pianist. Just look at the make-up of your typical orchestra. The up-side is that almost everybody in the performing arts needs an accompanist—soloists, musical theater productions, ballet classes and, of course, choirs. In the many years during and after my schooling at Northwestern and DePaul, I had the privilege of playing with many fine solo instrumentalists and singers. The problem is, as far as making a living is concerned, soloists usually only hire you sporadically on a project-oriented basis, as do theater productions. In ballet classes, you only rehearse and never perform. So where was I to look for that steady performing job?
One day after accompanying a voice lesson at Northwestern, a professor gave me a tip that the Chicago Children’s Choir was looking for an additional pianist. A choir—of course! I could rehearse and perform on a regular basis, and I have always related well with kids, so it was a perfect fit. I jumped at the chance, and I became a pianist for the Chicago Children’s Choir in 1996.
My years with the CCC were some of the most rewarding and enriching of my life, both professionally and personally, and I had more fun doing that job than should have been allowed! I was quite happy just playing the piano for years, but at some point various directors started asking me to help teaching the kids their parts. They’d say, “Gary, could you take the sopranos in the other room and go over their part with them while I work with the altos?”, to which I replied, “Um...okay...”, not really sure if I knew what I was doing, or if I’d enjoy it either.
To my surprise, I must have absorbed quite a bit during all those years of accompanying the choir and also solo singers before that, because I found myself instinctively knowing what to say and actually being effective. And the kids actually listened to me. And I kind of liked it. Running a few sectionals evolved into my teaching the kids some entire songs on my own, and then substituting for the directors in several rehearsals here and there. This led to me directing a couple of songs in performances and, eventually, to directing some entire performances on my own.
The last performance I directed as part of the CCC was one I’ll never forget, the one that gave me the “directing bug” for good. I was substituting for the director of the CCC school choir at Chicago's Pritzker School one spring for their graduation ceremony. There were only 3 songs—but 120 Chicago public school kids who didn’t know me and were all wound up and raring to get out of school. Yikes! Well, in short, I had a brief rehearsal with them the day before the ceremony, which I walked into with all the “fake” confidence I could muster (secretly scared to death), and yes, they were a little wound up—but they, too, listened to me. I still can’t believe that one. The next day at the ceremony I directed three songs from the keyboard, finishing with the rousing gospel song “Revelations 19” by Geoffrey Lavalle to an incredible audience response. The kids were great, and for my part I had pulled it off. I got such a rush from it, and I told myself at that moment: “I want to do this!”
Enter the Musical Offering
I knew I was growing out of my position as a choir accompanist, and I now had the confidence and real-life working experience to know I wanted to start my own group. After leaving the CCC Concert Choir in 2001, I remained as a pianist and assistant director with a couple of the CCC Neighborhood Choirs, determined to learn everything I could about every aspect of running a choir. At some point that year I looked up my old friend and colleague from Northwestern, Rick Ferguson. We had been out of touch for about 8 years, but I knew he had co-founded this little music school in Evanston called the Musical Offering. I actually looked him up in order to sell him some of my books of original piano music for his students. (He bought 2. I never did get a second order...). I remember meeting him at night in front of the school, handing him the books, and as I left I turned back on a whim and said, “Hey, Rick—does the Musical Offering have a children’s choir?”, and he said “No.” Before I could even think, I heard myself ask, “Do you want one?”
So, we were off and running, right? Well, not exactly. I quickly learned that it’s one thing to be a good musician and know how to work with kids, and entirely another to build an entire program from scratch. And here’s where my memory gets a little fuzzy. I know we tried to start the choir first as a summer choir camp, but I can’t remember if we tried it once in either 2001 or 2002, or both years. Either way, however many we tried, it (they) never happened. With an almost non-existent advertising budget and no word-of-mouth going for us yet, we were just another program on a sign that nobody knew anything about. Almost nobody signed up.
So, in the fall of 2002 we decided to try one more time, thinking that things might be different during the schoolyear. We announced the founding of the Musical Offering Children’s Choir (a.k.a. the “Musical Offspring”), priced it at a fair $175 per session, posted fliers, talked it up the best we could, and crossed our fingers.
This time it worked, right? Well...not exactly. 3 kids showed up for the first rehearsal. Then the next week 7 kids came. Wow! I was excited. That’s 133% growth in one week! Well, the third week we were back down to 5, and then 3 again, and then up to 5 again, which it held steady at for several weeks. “This is going nowhere,” I thought, but at the same time I was genuinely enjoying the rehearsals. The few parents, Rick, and I tried many things to get the word out, and I thought if we could just add one or two kids every few weeks or so, we’d be okay. So we kept going with our 5 kids.
So then it gradually picked up steam—right? Nope. 2 of the 5 kids up and quit. They were brothers, and I remember their mom saying, in as nice words as she could, that she wanted her kids to be in a “real choir” with more to offer. Ouch. I remember telling the 3 remaining kids the bad news, and telling them that I didn’t know what was going to happen, and we might just call the whole thing off. But we went ahead and did some rehearsing that day, and I remember that we actually ended up having a lot of fun and had a really good rehearsal. I left feeling strangely positive, and I decided that if they were going to keep coming, I’d keep coming.
We did end up adding a few more kids, and by the Holidays we had settled at 5 again. It still wasn’t anything nearly resembling a choir though. Reality was setting in for me, and I just didn’t see it being a viable program. I remember telling Rick that if we didn’t get at least 15 kids signing up for the new session in January, I was going to bag the whole thing. We knew we wanted to attract a broad cross-section of kids, and I had heard that, for some families, even the $175 a session was pretty steep. After talking with Rick, I decided to slash the price in half, and on top of that I decided to throw the doors wide open even to kids who could only pay a small portion of it, or none at all. The idea that kept going through my head was, “Bring the kids, and the funding will follow.” Rick and I knew nobody was going to get paid from this for a while, but we genuinely wanted to see the program work, and we considered it an investment.
So, did we get our 15 kids in January? Nope. But we got 10. I thought that was quite a significant jump and I decided not to can the choir. Am I glad I didn’t! Those 10 kids became a core group that we really started to build on. By the end of our first season we had 13 kids, and we actually gave a little in-house debut concert, right in the little yellow room at the Musical Offering.
Now It’s Starting to Go Somewhere!
The next year came and we started with 14 kids, added a couple more, and gave our first ever public concert in December of 2003: a Holiday Concert at Immanuel Lutheran Church right nearby. We didn’t even have uniforms yet. But the kids did a great job for their level, and I saw some signs of what could be. By the end of that year we had done several more public performances, including a joint concert with some CCC Neighborhood Choirs and the MIC Children’s Chorus, our first concert for an all-school assembly at Oakton School, and our first live radio broadcast on Loyola University-based WLUW, 88.7 FM in Chicago. We ended the season that spring with 17 kids and a much-improved concert which featured our first ever guest artist—the internationally acclaimed composer/director Rollo Dilworth, who just happens to be an NU alumnus and live in Evanston. All of this was a monumental leap from the year before, and we were on the map!
During Winter/Spring Session of 2004 we also acquired our yellow uniforms—and Jenny, our first and wonderful Intern and Assistant Director! She heard me talking to choral composer/conductor Mary Goetze at a choral director’s convention (ACDA) in Indiana. Ms. Goetze is a strong proponent of multicultural music as a means of battling divisiveness in the world, and I was telling her how my choir in Evanston just naturally developed as a group with that same philosophy, both because of my experiences growing up in East Cleveland and from my time with the Chicago Children’s Choir. Jenny came right up to me, said she was a freshman at Northwestern University, had heard me talking, loved what we were all about, and wanted to volunteer. She helped us with that Spring Concert in 2004 and stayed with us throughout her undergraduate years at NU.
One of the most striking, and affirming, things that stands out in my mind in the development of the choir is what happened in the fall of 2004. That fall, every single one of our 17 kids signed up again. A 100% return rate—that just doesn’t happen. Plus, we quickly added about 10 more kids on top of that. And over the course of the year we started to sound good. Now, “good” is a highly subjective little word, and might I say here that the kids have always been good for their level. We have developed a culture of having fun but also working very hard in rehearsals, and I have always gotten outstanding effort from our kids, and the results have been that they’ve almost always produced best singing they’ve been capable of at any given time. What more could a director ask for? Still, this year I was starting to hear flashes of “Really Good Choir.” I’m talking some flat-out good singing, period (or should I say, “periodically”? Well, more and more, it was showing up...). By the end of the 2004-2005 season, we put a live concert on a professionally recorded CD for the first time—a concert performed in 95 degree heat with no a/c, by the way! And we had to leave the giant fans off because the noise interfered with both the singing and recording. That concert was another one of those times that I’ll always remember, and be exceedingly proud of our kids for. I remember telling them right before we went onstage, “Ok you guys, this is going to be miserable.” I asked them to basically “suck it up” and give me everything they had, and they gave me nothing less than their best performance to date.
World Consciousness
I love the feeling I get after a good performance like that one, but if you’re read our mission statement you know that we are about much more than just making good music together. While singing music from all parts of the world, it’s hard not to think about, and talk about, the world. Songs we sing often touch on very difficult things in world history: spirituals emanate from slavery in America; one of our Gypsy songs we sang referenced struggles against the Nazis in WWII; freedom songs from South Africa come from the days of Apartheid. Now, of course we don’t dive deep into the darkest depths of these things, but when our songs touch on such subject matter we do acknowledge it in an objective way, and we talk about how the songs we sing can be anything from a peaceful way to relay hardships to a positive force for social change.
I truly do feel a sense of mission with this group beyond making it a fine performing choir. I often think about the seminar Mary Goetze gave at the 2004 ACDA convention. I remember her saying that she was watching the news one night years ago and saw a story about a Korean boy being beaten by a group of kids in the suburbs, just because he was Korean. She told us she just couldn’t stand to live in a world where that could happen, and she asked herself what she was going to do about it. She then began a passionate mission to visit non-Western countries, record their folk music performances on video, and bring them home to teach it to others. In the media today, as well as in our personal conversations, other cultures are so often referenced only in a context of political rhetoric or religious dogma. Through the arts we see their humanity. Simply put, when kids in America see the music and dance of another culture, it invariably sparks a fascinated interest in—as opposed to fear of—that culture. Thus the seeds are planted, through music, for promoting greater tolerance and understanding in the world.
Our kids, even the littlest among them, hear the news too. They hear people talking about bad things going on in many parts of the world today. And then here we are in rehearsal, often singing songs from those very parts of the world. Despite all the horrible things going on, I firmly believe that the vast majority of people in the world just want to get along and live in peace. We sing songs from the people of the world, not the governments. I try to stress that distinction to the kids when relevant.
In the spirit of world consciousness, our choir has established a tradition of donating a percentage of the returns from our annual Fundraiser Feast to an organization which either fights for positive change in the world or is supporting a worthy cause of some sort. We made our initial donation from the 2005 fundraiser to Amnesty International. Subsequent donations have included gifts to Unicef toward earthquake disaster relief in Pakistan; to Kids In Distressed Situations and Fyre Youth Squad toward their efforts helping young people in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina; to the Indiana University-Kenya Partnership, a program that helps fight hunger and the spread of HIV/AIDS, provides resources and care for AIDS victims and orphans, and works to empower people to be self-sufficient through education and vocational training programs in Kenya; to the Musical Offering School, our former home; and to Unicef for earthquake relief in Haiti. A really great thing about our fundraisers from 2006 and beyond is that the kids themselves made silent auction items which contributed toward our gross. I told them how proud they should be that they contributed, both through their singing and the work of their hands, to helping desperate people in other parts of the world. The amount of money raised might be small in the big picture, but I believe the symbolism of the gesture is powerful.
The Evanston Children's Choir Has Arrived
The 2005-2006 season was another banner year for us. Every year in our brief history has seen such leaps in our artistic progress, the development of our organization, and the public’s awareness of us, and this year was no exception. For the first time ever, in the fall of 2005, we hit capacity with 36 kids, which is all the little rehearsal room at the Musical Offering can possibly hold. That December we were invited to take part in a rather prestigious Holiday concert series at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, and we recorded another professional live CD of our Holiday Concert at Alice Millar Chapel, which is one of the premier choral venues in the Chicagoland area and has become one of our "home base" performing venues. This season culminated with another exciting Spring Concert, which ended with the gospel song “Stir Up the Gift” featuring blues singer Katherine Davis in an impassioned rendition that brought the house down--or should I say up, as she had everyone on their feet! Incidentally, I misjudged the length of the concert in what I told our recording technician, and that last song kind of went on and on, and it ended with just 4 seconds left on the master CD. But we got it all.
In addition to offering some stellar performances by the kids and our guest artists, our Spring Concert 2006 also set the stage for an exciting announcement—our name change! We unveiled our new logo and announced our re-birth as the Evanston Children’s Choir! There are many reasons for the name change, but one of the biggest is that there simply is no children’s choir that currently bears Evanston’s name, and I think there should be. And I think our kids deserve it.
This is probably a good place to mention that we are not at all affiliated with the Music Institute of Chicago, and we are not related to that institution’s formerly-named Evanston Children’s Chorus, which changed its name a couple of years ago to the Music Institute of Chicago Children’s Chorus. When we took the name “Evanston Children’s Choir,” I knew there might be some confusion, but I’m very proud of our new name and I guarantee you that, as word spreads about us and as our program continues its robust growth, there will be no confusion as we increasingly establish our own unique identity in the community.
Our Milestone 5th Season
So much happened in the 2006-2007 season that I almost don’t know where to begin. We grew with another huge leap once again, with a record influx of kids that put us over 50 singers. We restructured the ECC into 2 separate choirs, the Main Choir and the Junior Choir, to double our capacity. Just as significantly, the groups were formed around different ability levels. The Main Choir is our “flagship” performing group, and the Junior Choir allows for more appropriate teaching and directing for a more preliminary skill level.
Directing the Junior Choir has been quite a new experience for me. It reminds me of how things were when the choir first started 5 years ago with a few very young kids—except that now there are so many of them. And they’re so squirmy! It’s a good thing I had Jenny there with me to help. Perhaps one of the biggest success stories of the year is how the Junior Choir has come together and progressed. I had originally planned for them only to sing a set of music as part of the Holiday and Spring Concerts (and Fundraiser Feast) with the Main Choir, but they started sounding better than I had even anticipated. I mean, who knew that these young kids—most of whom were 6 or 7—could sing clear 2-part harmony in Russian?! I became so impressed that I gave them their own gig, a 30-minute concert for a student assembly at Lincoln School in Evanston this May. They did an admirable job, and the students loved them. I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from that concert from kids wanting to join!
And then there is our Main Choir. What a year! Half of this group’s members were new this year, but we were fortunate to have quite an infusion of new talent to bolster our ranks. Simply put, this group blew away my highest expectations this year in both the quality of their singing and their professionalism. They have reached a level that I had thought was still several years away.
About that “professionalism,” I am excited to say that the ECC is now officially a professional ensemble. We performed our first professional concert in April, 2007 for the Rotary International 2007 Council on Legislation at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile. This performance was a milestone for the kids, the organization, and for myself personally, and the full story of this gig says a lot about our kids. The kids had been sounding great in the rehearsals leading up to the gig, but I’ll admit I was a little concerned on several fronts beforehand. First of all, I’ve never liked mics, which I knew were going to be necessary in the carpeted space we were to perform in. I’m always concerned that mics will pick up every little flaw in the kids’ singing or perhaps make a few kids stick out, as opposed to produce the natural blend one normally gets in an acoustic setting. Secondly, I was informed that we would have no opportunity for a sound check for this performance, or even a practice walk-on & walk-off. And we weren’t allowed to set up risers, which had me concerned about my sight line with the kids. In other words, our kids had to walk in and do this concert “cold,” under difficult and entirely unfamiliar circumstances, in front of our largest audience to date—namely 700+ international Rotary delegates. Guess what? They did it, and in stellar fashion! The kids executed a perfect walk-on, locked into their sound immediately, and proceeded to sing the better than I have ever heard them sing, for the entire concert. Their intonation, their focus, their musical and theatrical expressiveness—all were over-the-top excellent. At times the audience started spontaneously singing along, and some were even swaying arm-in-arm at their tables. My proudest moment to date as a director was seeing over 700 Rotary delegates from around the world leap to their feet for an enthusiastic standing ovation at the end of our concert—for our kids! Kudos to Jeff Stitely and Stitely Entertainment for providing such a masterful micing/sound job and helping our kids sound their very best.
I remember being on the bus on the way to that performance, thinking of all the times in the past that I made a similar trip as a pianist for the Chicago Children’s Choir. Now I was on that bus as the director with my own kids, and the special nature of that moment really sunk in. On the ride home, we were all ecstatic with what we had just experienced. The kids were so excited that they could still not stop singing, even though they had just sung an entire concert and it was closing in on 9:00 p.m. on a school night, and they should have been exhausted! I was so happy that I didn’t even mind the otherwise annoying verses of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” (N.B. The ECC does not in any way promote or endorse “beer on the wall.” Attempts were made to get the kids to sing “99 Juice Boxes on the Wall” instead, but to no avail). The concert for Rotary International was truly a rite of passage for our kids and for myself as a director, and is an event I will always remember. To me, the most significant outcome of that performance is the way the kids have kept up that level of singing and poise since then. Some of our own kids even mentioned how something seems to have happened to the Main Choir as a result of that experience. The kids’ subsequent performances, at Oakton School in May and in our Spring Concert in June, were just as outstanding, and I could not possibly be more proud of them.
Our season ended on a bittersweet note, marking the end of the “Jenny Era” at the ECC. Our first Intern and Assistant Director, Jenny Borgwardt, just graduated from the Northwestern University with degrees in vocal performance and pedagogy, and would be leaving us. Jenny had been with us for over 3 years as a volunteer, assisting in rehearsals and concerts, helping with everything from vocal coaching to repertoire selection to directing. She is not only an excellent musician, but she has a true gift with kids. She has a natural, laid-back command in front of them that I have always marveled at. After leaving us, Jenny taught in Zion, IL for a year and then went off to Micronesia with the Peace Corps in the fall of 2008. Anyone she has worked with is undoubtedly extremely fortunate. On top of all of her talents, she has a true heart of gold. When we met, Jenny volunteered to help our fledgling choir before I could even ask, and she proceeded to give us 3 years of selfless service. She has been a true gift to us. The Spring Concert on June 3rd, 2007 was Jenny’s last with us, and I think the most special part of the concert was the final set, which she sang with us. I will always remember the absolutely gorgeous sound produced by Jenny and our kids together in our closing song, “Loveliest of Trees” by Eugene Butler. We know Jenny will continue to visit us, and we wish her every success imaginable.
We’re Incorporated!
Another big thing that happened during this 5th season was more of a behind-the-scenes change, but a big change nonetheless. The ECC always had a great relationship with the Musical Offering (MO). Since its inception and for several years after, the Evanston Children’s Choir had been a program of the Musical Offering (thus our former name, the “Musical Offering Children’s Choir”). Still, our choir was always almost completely autonomous within the MO system. In fact, most of the MO’s programs are fairly autonomous, which is one of the great things about that little music school. All of the MO’s teachers, classes, and programs pay a portion of their earnings to the MO in exchange for use of the space, promotion by the MO, and the ability to take advantage of the many doors the MO may open to them, all while having the freedom to pursue their own artistic directions. The ECC thrived under this system, and would not exist as it is today were it not for the support of the MO. Though the ECC has never received direct funding from the MO, the MO has helped in many other ways. In our first two years when the choir could not pay much of anything due to low enrollment, the head of the MO, Rick Ferguson, simply waived its usual fees. The MO has enthusiastically sung our praises at every turn, helping to spread the word. It has lent us instruments and other equipment, and has provided a warm, inviting atmosphere in which our program has flourished. The ECC is forever grateful to the MO for this nurturing support!
Nevertheless, as the choir program grew, the stage had been set for quite a while for its independence. I knew by the start of the '06-'07 season that the time had come for the ECC to incorporate. We filed our paperwork, and as of July 1st, 2007, the Evanston Children’s Choir began operating as an entirely independent entity. On August 9th of the same year, we were granted official 501(c)(3) nonprofit status by the IRS. So, why the change? Well, there are two main reasons. First of all, the ECC program had grown so large that is outgrew the administrative capacity of the Musical Offering to manage it on top of everything else the MO does. Simply put, the ECC was at a point where it needed its own board of directors, its own treasurer, its own grant writers, etc. Secondly, becoming an independent entity with our own 501(c)(3) nonprofit status would open up a whole new world of funding and grant opportunities for us. If we wanted to do things like hire a regular rehearsal pianist or a paid assistant director, or dramatically increase our exposure, we would need significantly increased funding. The ECC formed a dynamic and talented Board of Directors and began strategizing for the 2007-2008 season. Many, many thanks to attorney Van Economou who has provided invaluable assistance in getting our trademark registered, getting us incorporated, and helping us complete our nonprofit application. Special thanks also to CPA Anna Nalls, who was our financial consultant throughout the process and continues to advise us as needed.
More Firsts and More Funding (and Better Car Magnets!)
Having incorporated, the Evanston Children’s Choir entered the 2007-2008 season ready to forge ahead and see how all this restructuring would benefit us. In other words, to put it bluntly, would our own Board of Directors and our newly acquired independent nonprofit status translate into cold hard cash? Well, through the hard work of our Board and the generosity of our supporters in the community and among our own Choir families, this season’s combined returns from donations and our annual Fundraiser Feast jumped over 70% from last year! This has had led to several positive developments—including better car magnets. A silly little thing, you say? Ah, but they are one of my favorite things! (Incidentally, I apologize if you got one from our first “discount” batch, which turned from yellow to white-and-wrinkly in 8 months—if they managed to stay on your car at all. The new ones are stronger, with fancy UV protection. They’re still free. Ask us for one!)
Another much more significant result of our increased funding has been our ability to hire a regular staff pianist for the first time. Ms. Geraldine Ong is an outstanding, award-winning graduate student pianist from the Northwestern University School of Music who joined us midway through the 2007-2008 past season. The NU School of Music is also where we found another crucial addition to our staff, our new Intern/Assistant Director. After losing someone as wonderful as Jenny, I knew it would be hard to replace her, knowing full well that you can never really “replace” anybody. I would have to hope for someone else to come along with her/his own unique set of talents and qualities that would be a great fit for us. Still, I figured I shouldn’t necessarily expect someone as multi-faceted as Jenny, and maybe I should lower my expectations and be happy with someone who could just do things like take attendance, or maybe rush to the aid of some kid who starts throwing up or something. But then, early last fall, in walked this freshman from NU—Kathryn Crabb—with all the poise and confidence of someone twice her age, saying she wanted to work with us. After her first rehearsal with us, I was sold! It turns out she had already had experience helping direct a children’s choir back in her home town of Indianapolis, and it was instantly clear to me that she was ready to be a leader with us as well. And the kids instantly liked her. I gave her the position that day, and she has been simply outstanding ever since. Since she joined us as a freshman, we look forward to having her with us throughout her years at Northwestern.
Speaking of internships, a new mentorship program began this season, almost by accident. One of our Main Choir kids, Ileana Becker, asked if there was any volunteer work she could do with the ECC. I originally said I couldn't think of anything, but then I had my "aHA" moment. Kathryn Crabb helps primarily with the Main Choir and I thought, what if I had Ileana fill the same role with the Juniors? Ileana was our oldest Choir member and had been in the ECC since its inagural season, so she had both maturity and an in-depth knowledge of how we do things. She started coming to Junior Choir rehearsals and almost immediately began assisting with directing, becoming the ECC's first ever official Junior Assistant Director. She even directed her first song in a formal concert at our Spring Concert that June. Things worked out so beautifully that we decided from then on to regularly offer the opportunity for at least one of our older kids to assist as a volunteer staff member at any given time, providing that singer with invaluable opportunities for experience and growth, and giving us more help in the process.
Ok, enough about the staff and the funding. What about the kids, you ask? Well, we got over 60 of them to start the season, and our Junior Choir actually filled to capacity with a waiting list. After taking a survey, we were stunned to find out that those 60 kids came from 29 different schools (plus homeschoolers)! That’s a pattern of healthy diversity we hope to continue as we grow. And what have those kids been up to this season? Most importantly, their artistic progress has been steadily marching forward, which will continue to open new doors for us. Some firsts this past season include outreach performances at the Robert Crown Center, our debut at the Young Evanston Artists Festival, and a one-of-a-kind collaboration with students from the Musical Offering and Oakton School as part of The Song of Roland, a children’s opera by local composer James Falzone commissioned by the MO. Our audience also grew greatly this season, with the Holiday Concert ’07 in particular bringing in another record crowd. This was no doubt aided by our first real press coverage in an Evanston RoundTable article that December.
If You Had Told Me Last Year...
…that our 2008-2009 Season would see the ECC making its Harris Theater debut, taking up residence in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, being the subject of a documentary film, and having its most sound fiscal year ever in the midst of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, I would have said, “Yeah—and pigs can fly!” Well, all I’ve been hearing about lately is “swine flew here,” and “swine flew there.” Shows you how much I know. Here’s how this all played out:
The ECC Main Choir had just finished its debut performance at the Young Evanston Artists festival last spring (2008), and this guy walks up to me saying he is very interested in what the ECC is all about and would like to film us for something or other. I kindly took his card and promptly forgot all about it (people propose stuff all the time and nothing comes of it. You know how that goes). But soon after, a full-blown plan was in the works for an independent documentary film about the ECC. Filming did in fact take place all season long, and will continue through the fall of 2009. It’s a very small operation, but has been very interesting and fun nonetheless. After mugging a few times and sneaking glances at the camera, our kids soon forgot all about it, which is what you want. Tim, the film guy, originally intended to release the film in July, 2010 in artistic festivals across the country. We’ll keep you up-to-date on the film’s progress and official release as things develop.
As the summer of 2008 was winding down, I was in full planning mode for the new season, exploring venues and booking gigs. One of our favorite performing venues is Alice Millar Chapel on the campus of Northwestern University. I dropped a line to Dr. Stephen Alltop, Director of Music at the Chapel, to ask him something. He said, “Hey, you never responded to my message. I sent it 3 weeks ago…” That message was nothing less than an offer to perform Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the world-renowned Apollo Chorus of Chicago (which Dr. Alltop just happens to direct) at the Chicago’s Harris Theater in March. Holy almost-missed opportunities, Batman! You know how important e-mails sometimes get buried in your junk mail folder? Well, I check it a lot more carefully now. Anyway, I knew our choir has been steadily improving, and this offer was a sign to me of the strength of our growing reputation. But were we ready to sing in that kind of company, on that stage? Excited for the challenge, I didn’t hesitate. I could write chapters on this experience alone, but in a nutshell it ended up being one of the most thrilling and enriching experiences for us to date. We honed the kids’ sound to a new degree of polish—especially our small sub-group singing the boy soprano part in Chichester Psalms—and on March 7th, 2009 in their Harris Theater debut in Chicago’s Millenium Park, our kids were fabulous. I felt like a little kid whose dad just flung him up in the air and caught him: “Again! Again!” If we keep going the direction we are going, “again” should not be too far off.
A Joyful Noyes
Many big things were happening at the same time during the 2008-2009 Season. We started the season very excited about our project with the Apollo Chorus and intrigued by the documentary filming, when a crisis emerged. No, I’m not talking about the economy. Our enrollment has grown steadily each year, but so have the needs of the Musical Offering for the rehearsal space we were renting from them. We filled our choirs with the maximum number of kids that would fit into the space, only to find in late September that our rehearsal room was actually going to shrink due to more furniture the MO needed to add. We were already at the limits of being able to function in the space as it was, and it was unreasonable for us to expect the MO to completely cater to our needs for the 2x a week we used the space, so it became clear to me that we simply had to move in time for our next semester in January. But where? The ECC Board of Directors went into full scramble mode, and it just so happened that the Mecca for local arts organizations—the Noyes Cultural Arts Center in Evanston—had an opening for a large, 942 sq. ft. rehabbed studio. Even with subsidized rent it was too much, but it also just happened that there were at least two other arts organizations that wanted to share the space with us whose needs completely meshed with ours (funny how that kind of thing sometimes works out, huh?) Our application was accepted and the Noyes Center paired us up with Theatre Zarko, a really artistic, ingenious start-up puppet theater company. While we were sad to leave our home for 6 1/2 years at the Musical Offering, we were nonetheless ecstatic to be a part of the Noyes Center, a first-rate facility which houses arts organizations of all types and has welcomed us with open arms. Though at the start of this season we never anticipated moving, it quickly became clear to us that the Noyes Center was exactly where we need to be as we would continue to grow and further establish ourselves in the community.
And what about the economy? Ah, yes, the economy. I know the Great Recession is nothing compared to what my grandparents lived through in the 1930s, but it is still the worst downturn I’ve ever seen. Nonprofits have been hit as hard as anybody, with most suffering significant losses in donations. I can’t completely explain it, but I was thrilled (and kind of amazed) to be able to announce that our donations actually increased by a whopping 50% during the 2008-2009 Season! It’s true that as we have grown, our number of donors has naturally grown with us, but the thing that moved me the most is that the vast majority of repeat donors actually increased their gifts to us that season. This tells me that in the most desperate of economic times, the community really values us and wants to see us make it. We have continued to thrive, and all of us at the ECC have been continuously grateful for everyone’s generous support. We will continue to work hard to be an organization the whole community can be proud of.
Our New Friend Barry
—Manilow, that is. At the end of last season, I openly wondered what unforeseen surprises would make me say, “If you would have told me…” This certainly goes under the category! It was mid-December, and we at the ECC were well into our 2009-2010 Season, having done a couple of solid performances and getting ready for our big Holiday Concert in exactly one week. It was a lazy Sunday morning the day before my birthday, when the ECC home office phone rang. I let the machine take it, half listening while milling about doing other things, and I heard, “blah, blah, blah…booking agent…blah, blah, blah…Barry Manilow…blah, blah, blah…” Now, it’s common for us to get calls from agents, just to check on our theoretical availability for things and kind of feel us out, so I didn’t get overly excited. I listened carefully to the message, and this guy sounded sincere. I told my wife Mie, “You won’t believe this. An agent for Barry Manilow wants us to sing with him in concert at the Rosemont Theatre for 3 nights in a row, right before our Holiday Concert. Too bad there’s just no way we can do this. I’m going to call him back and turn it down, but hopefully something can work out in the future.” Mie said, “You should do it! Think of what that could mean for your group.” But how could I expect our families to agree to 3 concerts in a row, 2 of which would have meant our kids being whisked off right after school, all of which would have them getting home well after 10:00 p.m. each night, and the last of which would be the night before our big Holiday Concert? And how on earth would we learn Barry's music with just one rehearsal left? I called the agent back to turn him down. He told me that Mr. Manilow decided on a whim that he’d like a children’s choir to sing with him in concert (in 4 days!!), and he was referred to us by none other than the good folks at the Apollo Chorus, whom we did that Harris Theatre gig with back in March. He said we were recommended to him above all the other choirs in the region, and that he was told “if anyone could do this, we could.” Ooh, he was making this hard! I told him there was probably no way my families would go for it, given the heavy burden on them and the kids, but…I agreed to flip the switch and dive in and find out.
I got on the phone and e-mail to every family, told them the deal and said I’d need an answer and a commitment from at least 30 kids by 12:00 a.m. that night, while the agent worked on his end to approve our deal. I got flooded with over-the-top enthusiastic responses of, “Barry Manilow??—YES!” from just enough parents (as their kids mumbled, “who’s he?” in the background), and by late that night it was ON. By Monday afternoon we had 3 days of chaperones and buses arranged, and by midnight I received an e-mail of the Mp3 and chart of the song we had to learn. It needed arranging! I finished that by 3:00 a.m., ready for our kids to learn at rehearsal later that day. Tuesday afternoon our kids learned and memorized their section of Barry’s “Because It’s Christmas” in 3-part harmony and nailed it. Not only that, but our kids had to memorize all their marks and cues in the hours right before the first concert, sing their 3 parts diluted in half with 3 vocal sections on each half of the stage, and do it all with their backs to the conductor. No problem! Our kids were complete professionals and were a smash hit at the Rosemont Theatre. Mr. Manilow himself gave us his exuberant approval, and we all have a memory to last a lifetime. Perhaps the most amazing part of all this is that our kids had to do our own full Holiday Concert the very next day, running on fumes. True to form, they rose to the occasion and it was a fantastic concert! Our guest artists, S.O.U.L. Creations, rounded out the event with a couple of jamming sets, and a record crowd witnessed it all.
That was the highlight of our season, for sure. But there were other exciting developments. This season saw the start of our fledgling Concert Choir program, the beginnings of an even higher-level group that we are eager to see grow and develop. Our new and extremely overqualified pianist, Evelyn Dias, is as perfect a fit for us as I can imagine. Our kids’ performance at this season’s Spring Concert was the tightest and most dynamic yet, and just a joy to direct. We got our first grant, from the Woman’s Club of Evanston. And interest in our program is so high that we are expanding to add a second Junior Choir in the 2010-2011 Season due to popular demand. Our own Kathryn Crabb will take the helm of that choir, having been promoted from volunteer Assistant Director to the paid position of Associate Director, the ECC’s first. Congratulations, Kathryn!
Into the Future
The future looks increasingly bright for us. We are on sound financial footing, having gotten through another season amidst rough economic times with flying colors thanks to our wonderfully generous supporters. And our organization is booming with and influx of kids! We ended the 2009-2010 Season with about 80, and this fall we are expecting anywhere from 100 to 130 of them. I can’t wait for the latest edition of the Evanston Children’s Choir to take shape—and for the next global superstar to call! We’re only getting bigger and better each year, so who knows…
Back in 2002 when all this started with 3 kids who couldn’t sing the same note together, I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams that the choir would become what it is today. I am more excited than ever about what the future holds for us. If you are too, and if you’re touched by our story and moved by what we stand for, we enthusiastically welcome you to be a part of what we’re all about—whether by coming to hear us perform, volunteering, helping us financially, or simply talking about us and spreading the word. Our best advertising is always you! The kind of enthusiasm and support we continue to receive from our choir parents, kids, and the surrounding community is entirely what has gotten us where we are today, and will propel us far into the future—with Diversity in Harmony.
|
