The Chattanooga Boys Choir will be in concert on Saturday as they host and collaborate with two other renowned boychoirs. The CBC will be joined by the American Boychoir and the Young Men’s Choir of the Blair Children’s Chorus from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The three choirs will perform separately on the concert, which begins at 5 p.m. in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Chattanooga, 401 Gateway Ave. They will combine for two pieces to close the program.
Review for the choirs:
The Blair School Young Men’s Choir is the all-boys ensemble of the Blair Children’s Chorus, which is a community education program of the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. This choir is under the direction of Mary Biddlecombe.
The American Boychoir is one of the most storied and prestigious boychoirs in the world. Based in Princeton, N.J., the choir was first founded as the Columbus Boychoir in 1937. The choir has long been recognized as one of the finest musical ensembles in the country, presenting over 100 concerts annually, along with major performance opportunities with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, among many others. Boys in residence at the American Boychoir school are in grades 4-8 and come from across the country and around the world to pursue a rigorous musical and academic curriculum. The ABS provided much of the music and was the inspiration for the 2014 film Boychoir, starring Dustin Hoffman. Fernando Malvar-Ruiz is in his eighth year as the Litton-Lodal Music Director of The American Boychoir.
This will be the fourth time that the American Boychoir has performed with the Chattanooga Boys Choir in Chattanooga since current CBC Artistic Director Vincent Oakes’ tenure with the choir started in 2003. Current American Boychoir staff accompanist Mark Laseter is 2010 alum of the Chattanooga Boys Choir, and he will be on tour with the choir when they appear in Chattanooga on Saturday. He started on staff of the ABS after earning his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance degree from Westminster Choir College in 2014.
This concert is free and open to the public. A freewill offering will be collected to help offset touring and hosting expenses for the traveling choirs.