HSCF: Chamber Singers

History of the High School Choir Festival

Since its inception in 1964, the Los Angeles Master Chorale benefited from the extraordinary support of the Master Chorale Associates – a group of choral music advocates who helped to promote the Master Chorale’s concerts at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion as well as raise crucial funds for the organization by hosting annual benefit galas and fundraisers. In 1988, on the eve of the Master Chorale’s 25th anniversary, enthusiastic supporters from the Palos Verdes Peninsula and surrounding areas hosted a salon at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Turnacliff to revitalize the South Bay chapter of the Master Chorale Associates. Recognizing that the Master Chorale greatly needed an impactful education outreach program and with the goal of fostering a love of choral music in schools, the Associates planned an event that would bring together students for a celebratory day of singing under the baton of LAMC’s second music director, John Currie. Longtime Master Chorale subscriber and supporter Phyllis Rothrock led the charge! Rothrock served as a college counselor for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 23 years and was a passionate advocate for music. “The arts need to be just as visible as sports,” she would say. “The annual High School Choir Festival is such an inspiring day.  It brings together singers of various backgrounds and shows that choral music transcends language and cultural differences.  We believe in the positive impact music can have on students’ lives, and we want to ensure this program in the future.” With her leadership, the Associates organized, raised funds and volunteered their time to accomplish the complex task of shepherding hundreds of high school students through a highly choreographed day of singing. It may come as a surprise that the LA Master Chorale’s very first High School Choir Festival was not performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the venue which the Master Chorale had called home since 1964 and the very center of the city. But in fact, the first Festival began as a much more localized event at the Norris Theater in Rolling Hills Estates with “only” 440 students from 10 schools in the South Bay area. Carson High School music director Kerry Burtis remarked, “There are lots of festivals where each choir performs alone, but not where you can sing in a mass choir with a great conductor.” Music Director John Currie worked with each school individually before the Festival. “His coming to the class really sparked the students,” said choral director Kathleen Jensen of West High School. “I was a little bit concerned that the director of such a prestigious group would have trouble relating to high schoolers, but his attitude was relaxed. Many of my girls said they just loved his accent” (Referring to Currie’s distinct Scottish brogue). John Currie conducted the High School Choir Festival for two years before handing the baton over to the Master Chorale’s next music director, Paul Salamunovich. Still a South Bay-centric event, the Festival took place at El Camino College with even more schools participating. Salamunovich’s own musical interests were rooted in the Los Angeles Youth Choir, which he joined as a young man in the 1940s. The choir was formed by his mentor and LAMC’s first Music Director Roger Wagner and inspired Salamunovich’s passion for the Festival, which soon outgrew the South Bay venues and blossomed in its new home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1995. Two years later, the Los Angeles Master Chorale Chamber Singers were established. The Singers performed a musical set for the students that both inspired and offered a glimpse of what a professional career in singing could be like. At the end of the performance, the students and Chamber Singers joined together to sing the Festival finale – that year The Battle Hymn of the Republic – and the tradition of incorporating the Chamber Singers in the Festival has continued all the way through to today. By the end of Paul Salamunovich’s tenure with the Master Chorale, the Festival swelled to 28 high schools and over 1,000 student singers. One year, there was even a guest appearance by world renowned composer/conductor Jester Hairston, whose popular arrangements of African American spirituals became a staple of the choral repertoire. Upon Salamunvovich’s retirement in 2001, the students from all of the participating schools offered a surprise and heart-warming musical tribute by singing John Rutter’s The Lord Bless You and Keep You – one of his favorite arrangements – to the out-going music director. Although Mr. Salamunovich recently passed away in April 2014, his mark on the Festival will be indelibly imprinted in the memories of the students who were fortunate enough to sing for him. In 2002, Grant Gershon – the fourth Music Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale – was next to make his Festival debut at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and introduced his own brand of signature programming, which included an eclectic mix of music like Renaissance composer Palestrina’s Tu es Petrus, alongside new music such as Broadway composer Ricky Ian Gordon’s New Moon and Joy. Gershon remembers, “I attended the Festival in Paul’s last season and I was awed by the power of this event. I continue to be amazed by the beauty and passion of these young singers, and I’m humbled by the dedication of their tireless choir directors!” This time in the Master Chorale’s history marked a tremendous period of growth for the organization, including a full time staff member who was hired to oversee all education activities. Then it was a whole new ball game when Walt Disney Concert Hall opened its doors to the High School Choir Festival for the first time in 2004. The logistics were daunting: where do you position hundreds of students in an auditorium with multiple seating sections that surround the stage? Though it presented some challenges, the new features of Disney Hall immediately enhanced the Festival with its superb acoustics, allowing students to much better hear their fellow singers, and a “wrap around” seating formation that brought the entire group closer to each other and the conductor. “The students audibly gasped the first time they walked into Walt Disney Concert Hall,” remembers Andrew Brown, the Master Chorale’s General Manager. “They were so excited and pumped up before the performance that they could barely contain themselves. At one point, they broke into the ‘wave’ before the morning rehearsal started. I think that was the first time a stadium wave was ever performed in Disney Hall!” The media frenzy over the iconic new venue placed a spotlight on the Festival and garnered special attention from composers, educators and elected officials. In fact, even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped by in 2006 to speak to the students from the stage about the importance of their arts education programs and to congratulate them on their year-long culmination. A new tradition emerged in 2007 when a new work was commissioned for and performed by the students of the High School Choir Festival. The Master Chorale’s Swan Family Composer in Residence, Shawn Kirchner, composed Tu Voz (Your Voice) to commemorate the 18th Annual Festival. This began a string of new premieres for both the Festival Chorus and the LA Master Chorale Chamber Singers in following years. New works included Ricky Ian Gordon’s Prayer in 2009 and Yama No Mizu by Lauren McLaren. LAMC’s Associate Conductor Lesley Leighton commissioned the latter for the Chamber Singers in 2013 to offer students the experience of hearing a new choral work performed for the very first time. Another modification to the Festival at this time was the transition from a showcase of individual high school choruses to one, unified Festival Honor Choir. Through a nomination process, selected students from participating schools were offered an opportunity to sing in an ensemble that performs challenging repertoire that rivals some of the most seasoned choirs. In 2010, acclaimed guest conductor María Guinand conducted the Festival’s first honor choir, which benefited from her vast choral knowledge and experience from conducting multiple ensembles in her native Venezuela and guest conductorships all over the world. Today, the Festival is in its 25th year. This year offers not one, but two world premieres: ‘Tis You That Are the Music by Christina Whitten Thomas for the LAMC Chamber Singers and Es Tu Tiempo (It’s Your Time) by Francisco Núñez for the Festival Chorus. So today we write another page in the Festival history books with hundreds of students joining together for a celebratory day of singing, continuing the great tradition of choral music in Southern California.

Archival Recording