- [Announcer] The following program
is a Tryout TV Production,
made possible in part by a special grant
from the Friends of Channel 21, Inc.
- My whole life, aside from my own family of course,
is wrapped up in Boychoir.
I feel that it is a very important thing
for boys to be given the chance to develop their aesthetic
and spiritual qualities through singing.
(orchestral music)
- [Boy] Oh, look at that.
Look at that, they're draggin' him.
They're draggin' him.
- [Narrator] A boy is a grin, a grab and good grief.
A boy is an explosion waiting to happen.
A boy is a holler on his way to eat.
What changes these boys from constant yelling motion
into a polished and disciplined choir?
How do they learn to become part of a whole?
To try and try and try again
to reach beyond themselves?
We tend to wait out pre and early adolescence.
But a boy choir depends upon the raw energy
of this age to produce the boy choir sound.
(peaceful music)
A boy choir brings boys together at a time
when they need to be together.
Boychoir provides a structure which is every bit as valid
as football, hockey or soccer.
Of course, it takes strong, dedicated
and sensitive leadership
to convert their raw, seething energy
into the growth needed to produce the golden sounds
of an excellent boy choir.
In the Madison Boychoir that leadership
comes from Carrel Pray.
- The goal of Boychoir, of course,
is to introduce this marvelous area of singing to boys,
so that when they grow up to be men
it'll be a perfectly natural thing for them
to sing in choirs.
For them to know that ah, there's a field
that yes, I'm familiar with that.
Yeah, I've done that, I can do that.
I'll try out for that because when I was a young boy
I used to sing in a boy's choir.
A whole life opens up for them then.
I have four sons of my own and now they're older of course.
But they're all singing, every one of them.
Because they were singing
when they were nine, 10, 11 and 12.
Those crucial years.
(door closing)
Hello.
- Hello.
- [Carrel] How are you?
- Fine.
- Very good, what is your name?
- Hoyt Sze.
How do you spell your last name?
- S Z E.
(piano playing)
A year in the life of a boy chorister begins with auditions.
And he has to pass that before he's accepted.
He's then put into a training period of one year.
And during that year,
the boy will learn about his two sounds.
His head sound and his chest sound.
And how to accomplish a blend of those two sounds.
He also will learn to read music.
We teach Solfege.
He must learn that.
He must learn reading.
He must learn rhythm through the use of eurythmics.
Sounds, would you please?
Be a siren and then come to one like you're being a siren
and maybe stop on this note, or this one,
or wherever you want to.
- Whoo, whoo, whoo!
- Good, very, very nice.
All right, let's take you up a bit.
(piano playing)
* La, la, la, la, la
Ready and.
* Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo
- Good.
* Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo
* Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo.
- Keep open.
* Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo
- Okay, let's go down a bit.
(piano descending)
Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo, the end.
* Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo
- There in your chest then aren't you?
- [Both] Loo, loo, loo, loo, loo.
- Good, very nice.
All right, I'll clap a rhythm and you echo that back.
All right.
(hands clapping)
Very, very nice.
The rudiments of music that he has that first year
are very important,
and he really would be floundering as a concert chorister
if he didn't have that basic year of training.
But even as a training boy,
he gets to do all the things that the other boys do.
We have a winter weekend,
which they take their sleds and their saucers
and cross country skis.
And we have an intensive rehearsal period
during that winter weekend,
as well as much fun.
Mostly it's to establish a choral union type of thing
where they eat together, they sleep together,
they play together,
and all of this helps finally
in their feeling like a solid unit.
And I think they sing better as a result.
There's great comradery in the Boychoir.
Then they go on to preparing of course
for the big concert in the spring.
And we have a summer day camp in August at Edgewood College
and that is from Monday through Friday.
And that's another intensive period.
Instead of just a weekend, it's a whole week
of playing and working hard together.
Interspersed with that of course are concerts
that we do at nursing homes and (mumbles) civic groups,
rotary, Kiwanis.
Like very much to take our choir to nursing homes
where the people can't get out to hear them.
I feel that this is their way of contributing
to the community.
'Kay, when you hold your book up,
hold it so that your eyes can come up over the music.
'Kay?
Not so, don't see the top of your heads.
Most of you are doing very well on animated faces.
You're doing better.
Some of you.
Some of you are still sort of drifting off
into the background.
- [Narrator] But before the concerts,
before the tours, before the performances for parents,
come rehearsals.
Rehearsals are to Boychoir what ice cream is to sundaes.
You can't have one without the other.
Hours and hours are spent in rehearsal
before any performance.
(boys singing)
* Hallelujah
- Back.
* Hallelujah
- All right, that isn't quite right.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Here's what you did, halle lu, I can't even say it.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
See you didn't do it quite what it says.
It says ha le lu jah, ha le lu jah.
See if you can do that.
Measure 51, third beat.
One and two.
* Hallelujah
- [Narrator] When boys have to be picked up,
taken to rehearsal, and then driven home again,
there have to be mothers and fathers around.
In fact, boy choir could not function without them.
One of these mothers is Diane Adams
who has been helping in Boychoir for 10 years.
- Well, I think the Boychoir is a growing place.
It's a growing place for the boys,
for their parents,
for the adults who work with the organization.
And I think they grow in a lot of different ways.
I've watched my own children grow
as they were in the choir in the early days
from '72 to '76,
and I've watched these waves of boys come along
all these years and I'm always impressed
by the growing.
They grow in several different ways.
In an athletic sense they're growing
because the body is changing all during these years
at a very rapid rate.
But they're using this one set of muscles for breathing
and growing athletically.
They're growing musically of course
because of the type of music they're exposed to.
They're growing in a sense of cooperation.
What one part does, the other part must listen
to very sensitively,
so they're growing in this cooperative spirit.
All of those things I think make up this unit
called the Boychoir.
* Hallelujah
(piano playing)
- [Carrel] Yeah, D.
- [Narrator] Gary Bushland is a choir father
who's son, Paul, sings in the Madison Boychoir.
- Many times children are given junior roles.
They're always the helpers.
They're asked to clean up, they're asked to serve.
They're asked to do small things.
Well, Boychoir is a group of excellence.
They're quality and they're asked to sing at conventions,
at music conclaves.
They're asked to give demonstrations.
They come to nursing homes just to sing to the people.
And the boys I think get a sense
that they are not junior participants in something.
That they really are part of an excellent group.
That people can learn from them as they demonstrate
that they can give joy to nursing home people,
and that they really, in some ways,
are performing at a professional level.
And it's very hard for nine, 10, 11 year old boys
to get that kind of experience in other ways.
(piano playing)
- [Carrel] Do, you watching?
Do.
* Ah
(piano playing)
* men
- All right, let's do that again please.
There is a diminuendo and (mumbles),
really go way, way down. Way way way down
'cause you finally have to reach pianssisimo.
pianissimo.
All right, here we go.
A.
Measure 85.
Mark, let's take the measure before they come in.
Least I think you've learned that entrance, haven't you?
Finally.
Here we go and one,
(piano playing)
two, three.
* Ah
- Say that again please.
Please watch the conducting to get off of the,
the diminuendo has to start almost right away.
As soon as you begin on the ah,
you just begin bringing it down.
Almost right away.
All right, Mark.
(piano playing) One, two,
three.
* Ah
* Men
(piano softly playing)
* Ah men
* Hal
* Le
* Lu
* Jah
- Boychoir is the essence of cooperation.
The group activity is just as important
as a game of soccer.
Where it is not the single, in fact,
watch out for the solo voice.
We really have many, many ordinary voices
coming together to make this extraordinary sound.
And they are aware constantly of the boy across the room,
the boy next to them, all the time.
Blending and balancing their voices to fit
that entire thing.
- [Narrator] When Boychoir goes out into the community
to sing at a nursing home for residents
who can't easily get out to see them,
they become part of a happy exchange.
They give their music and they get back the pleasure
of seeing others enjoying their music.
(piano playing)
* [Boys Singing]
- One thing that really pleases me
is I watch my son, Paul, in his second year of Boychoir
is the growing sense of responsibility
that he's developing.
Boychoir's really meant to be a four to five year activity
for the boys.
And when they start out they clearly receive a lot more
than they're able to give.
Carrel gives them excellent voice training.
They learn what it means to be a part of a group
and to participate in that group
and there's just many, many hours of rehearsal and training.
The real payoff for Boychoir comes
in really their last two years,
'cause they're older, as they've absorbed all of this,
as they really have a high level of ability
and they're able to give back to the organization.
* [Boys Singing]
- "Choose Something Like a Star"
in Randall Thompson's, Frostiana,
is an inspiring piece.
One of the things the boys have to do
is to memorize that and become a part of that poem itself.
And when at times the mob is swayed,
you can choose something like a star
to stay your mind on and be stayed.
Now they are not too young
to understand the emotional side of that,
and that that is something that they can hang onto
through these incredibly precarious years.
Just pre-adolescent years
where they need, I think, that kind of stability.
And Boychoir gives them that kind of purpose,
I believe, in their lives.
- One of the really critical things to me
is the words, the text.
I do believe that what you take in, what you read,
then what you speak, reflects who you are,
changes you in some way.
The other night I was watching a boy down at rehearsal,
seated on a stool, doing his memorization,
his assignment of "Choose Something Like a Star"
and his eyes were bright.
He was involved.
By the time he got to the end of the text,
he was orating almost.
Choose something like a star.
And I really do think that changes the person
when you have those kinds of words.
- [Narrator] On a rainy spring evening,
Boychoir gets together for a taping session
in a recording studio.
- [Engineer] Okay, this'll be "Sound the Trumpets,"
take one.
- [Narrator] The camera lights are bright and warm.
The choir sings the same piece over and over
until the engineer and Carrel are satisfied
with the quality.
They're young and they get restless.
They're hot and thirsty and tired now,
but they know what it means to be part of a Boychoir.
The training and the discipline hold.
On the downbeat they sing.
* Sound the trumpet til around
* Ah ha ah ha ooo
* You make the listening shores rebound *
- [Narrator] Accompanist Mark Moorman,
a former Boychorister,
and other recent Boychoir graduates
comment on their Boychoir experience.
- I think Boychoir developed musical taste
in large part due to the taste of the director,
Mrs. Pray, who I think has impeccable musical taste.
You cover a lot of fine music and important music.
- You learn in Boychoir to be working in a group
and for that responsibility,
and then you learn a lot of musical training mostly,
I think.
- I would very much recommend it to a eight year old boy
to join Boychoir if he is willing
to put out the recommended amount of input.
Which if you put that in, that input,
the output, you receive so much that it's worth a lot.
- [Engineer] Okay, this'll be "Amazing Grace," take two.
(piano playing "Amazing Grace")
* Amazing Grace
* How sweet the sound
* That saved a wretch like me
* I once was lost
* But now I'm found
* T'was blind but now I see
* Through many dangers
* Toils and snares
* I have already come
* T'was grace that brought me safe thus far *
* And grace will lead me home
* When we've been there 10,000 years *
* Bright shining as the sun
* We no less days to sing God's praise *
* That when we first begun
* Amazing Grace
* How sweet the sound
* That saved a wretch like me
* I once was lost
* But now I'm found
* Was blind but now I see
(piano playing)
- [Narrator] When Boychoir gathers for a performance,
they file into the hall solemnly.
Not a smirk or a scowl among them.
They've spent a year in rehearsal, in practice,
in singing a piece over and over.
Breathing, interpreting, phrasing,
getting it all just right.
Now they're stopped for a moment in that special place
between childhood and adolescence.
And while they're stopped, they sing.
Aware and full of innocent dignity,
they sing with a pure clear sound that delights,
turning their rough and tumble into gold.
Arms, legs and noise have become arms, legs and sound.
The sound of the Madison Boychoir.
(boys singing)
- To pick out the greatest single reward
from our sons being in Boychoir,
as a mother I would say that my greatest reward
was given to me this Christmas
when our son soloed.
There is no way that this can ever be measured,
there's no money on earth that could buy
what that meant to me as a mother.
It was one of the greatest thrills of my life
and will always continue to be.
(Boyschoir singing)
(whimsical orchestral music)
(Boyschoir singing)
(whimsical orchestral music)
(Boyschoir singing)
(whimsical orchestral music)
(audience clapping)
- [Announcer] The proceeding program
was a Tryout TV Production,
made possible in part by a special grant
from the Friends of Channel 21, Inc.