Next weekend, when young singers audition for one of Vero’s newest and most remarkable performing groups, there will be more spots available and more help with fees.
The Atlantic Children’s Chorale has received a second grant from Quail Valley Charities to expand its scholarship program, and it’s a 30 percent increase over last year’s grant.
The private club’s fundraisers decided to give the chorus $11,400 last year after hearing the group sing, a performance the charity’s executive director, Martha Redner, called “totally incredible.”
This year, after hearing from three participants who spoke of the chorus’s effect on their lives, Quail decided to not only repeat their gift, but increase it to $16,000.
“They were very generous,” says Jose Daniel Marcos, the chorale’s founder and director. “They saw the value of the program and the difference we’re making among children of this community.”
Last year, the grant helped 17 singers, doubling the membership in the chorale. The group has grown from six original members in its first year, 2006, to more than two dozen singers.
The Quail Valley grants have enabled the group to add a preparatory choir for children in grades 2 through 6; the concert choir includes the more advanced sixth-grade singers and runs through 12th grade.
By reaching out to children at a younger age, Flores expects to be able to expand the ranks of the upper-level singers in future years.
In April of last year, the older ACC singers performed the Mozart Requiem alongside a large new choir of auditioned adult singers, the Atlantic Symphonic Chorus, accompanied by a professional orchestra. The much-anticipated concert sold out well in advance and drew a standing ovation from 1,000 people. It was likely the largest production of local performers of the Vero season. This year, the same group performed Brahms Requiem with similar success.
“Their collaboration with the Symphonic Chorus has been extraordinary,” says Flores, who created the larger group last year from the best singers in various Vero choirs. Along with the orchestra, Flores imports professional soloists for the requiem performances. Most of the Atlantic Symphonic Chorus singers are current or retired music professionals or educators. Students in the children’s chorale, including boys, sang the soprano part.
In making the case for a second grant from Quail Valley, graduating seniors Melina Zohn of Vero Beach High School, and Nicolette Puskar and Natalia Deibe of St. Edward’s, all mentioned the thrill of performing the requiems.
Under Flores’ tutelage, the children learn to sing by sight-reading music and to identify notes by ear. They also are educated in music theory and gain exposure to great works of choral literature as well as more popular music.
“There’s a lot that is unique about this group,” says Flores, an organist and lifelong choral conductor with a doctorate in sacred music, and the former dean of academic affairs at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, founded by Pablo Casals. He moved to Vero in 2003.
“In addition to the quality level, they have a chance to perform with professional orchestras twice a year. Children performing with professionals – that’s rare.”
He says the depth of the repertoire the young singers master can profoundly affect them, just as it does his adult singers in other groups.
“We talk about the transformational power of music in the lives of children – I have witnessed this firsthand,” he says.
Flores says few such groups exist in Florida. “There are very good children’s choirs in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa. But what is remarkable is this level of performance coming from such a small town.”
Flores cites the dedication of music teachers in local schools for generating the interest in the select group of singers who want to pursue serious choral repertoire.
Last year, the children sang Mozart’s Requiem in Latin. This year, they learn the entire Brahms’ work in German.
The ACC gave its final concert earlier this month to an enthusiastic audience at Community Church, where it typically performs, and where its conductor, Flores, is employed as music director. The children’s chorale is a separate entity from the church, with its own board and 501(c)3 status.
The cost to each child to participate in ACC ranges from $550 for the preparatory choir and $675 for advanced singers. The Quail Valley Charities grant will help defray those costs for those who need it. There are also payment plans available as well as discounts for children from the same families.
“We don’t want to deny any child the chance to sing in the chorale because they can’t afford it,” Flores says.
The time investment can be another limiting factor for such talented children, who are often involved in other pursuits. The preparatory chorus rehearses an hour and a half per week and the concert chorus has weekly two-hour rehearsals plus one Saturday morning per month.
There are additional rehearsals for performances, plus an all-day music “camp” on a Saturday during the year.
But the investment appears to pay off, according to participants. One dad spoke of the challenge of rousing his middle-school age daughter on Saturday mornings, only to find her exhilarated when he came to pick her up after rehearsals.
Of Flores’ three senior students this year, all are planning to continuing singing in college, with one attending a music conservatory in Wisconsin and another accepted to Florida State University’s music education program.
Natalia Diebe is a senior at St. Edward’s School. She is headed for Boston University in the fall. “I’ve been in ACC for all four years of high school,” she says. “ACC has greatly widened my musical horizons.”
She has sung in all the ACC concerts, including music in a “plethora of languages.”
“The Brahms Requiem we performed this past April has actually awakened my passion for the German language,” she says, adding that she’d like to continue with German in college.
The ACC has traveled to Denver and to universities around Florida. Flores expects that the choir will travel to Europe sometime in the next three years. “We’re pondering the possibility of going international,” he says.
“This is a choir that can stand next to some of the best choirs of the nation and we have been representing extremely well the state of Florida,” says Flores.
Anyone interested in auditioning should go to the Community Church’s rehearsal room at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 31. “It’s a simple audition to see where they are musically,” Flores says.
More information is available on the ACC website: www.atlanticchildrenschorale.org.
