Coney Island Baby

At my church, we are lucky enough to be blessed with a multitude of children and teens (and adults) in the choir. The youngest ones are 3 or 4 years old!!! When I joined my church three years ago, I was not expecting the volume or talent of musicians present.

The choirs are split up as such: 3-7 year olds, 2nd-5th grades, 6th-8th grades, high school girls, boys whose voices have changed/are changing, and adults. We will sing anywhere from 1 to 4 or 5 prepared pieces on any given Sunday (aside from the hymns). Solos go out across the age groups and are always up for grabs; a good incentive to show up early for the Sunday morning call is to offer out solos to the first arrivals.

Most of these kids have grown up together and are really good friends. My siblings and I joined the church three years ago, but we were welcomes with open arms and a great deal of joyful noise. Back then, one brother was a tenor (now a baritone) and the other was a boy soprano (now a BASS II). I'm still a soprano/alto/tenor, or as my parents once called it, a trans-SECTION-al (hahaha).

The way I remember that my brother was a boy soprano that year was because we sang the Rutter Requiem for the All saints Day concert, and he had the high solo at the end of the Pie Jesu (it goes up to a nice high A flat). It's hard to believe how quickly his voice has changed.

Anyway, the teen boys rehearse after the adult choir rehearsal each week. They have a fair amount of religious and spiritual songs in their repertoire, but they also have some contemporary songs as well: Stand by Me, Wonderful World, Banana Boat, and Coney Island Baby to name a few. One of the coolest things about the contemporary pieces (aside form the great harmonies and awesome soloists) is the choral-ography. It just makes the piece, and the boys sing it so well; you can tell they are having a blast.

I can remember hearing Banana Boat back in 2007 when the boys did a joint concert with my old youth choir. I thought they were brilliant, hamming it up for the audience and generally enjoying themselves (at least THEY were smiling and moving around while they sang, and they still do).

As a sidenote: in case you haven't noticed, I don't use names and places in my blog. I use general descriptions and such. If the people mentioned indirectly want to claim their references, they are more than welcome to. I'll leave it up to them. It really should be their decision anyway...

"Farewell my Coney Island baby. Farewell my own true love."