Pulled from reports written by Sam Barge, organized by Abby Rolland
As part of The Presser Foundation’s drive to be more transparent and to amplify the work of its partners, it uses information from grant reports to highlight its grantees.
Each post will spotlight one partner, who has final say over the contents and structure of the post. In this way, the Foundation hopes to not only use information from grant reports (which often go unread and unused), but also to shine the light on many wonderful music organizations.
This post focuses on Berks Youth Chorus, a choral and music education organization in Reading, PA with a strong focus on community, friendship, and music performance.
Background
The mission of the Berks Youth Chorus (BYC) is to enrich our community by fostering and promoting choral excellence in young people through music education and quality performances. BYC strives to cultivate leadership, confidence, friendship, creativity and joy for choral singing in young singers through diverse programming and musical excellence.
The Chorus was founded by Donald Hinkle in 1992 as Berks Classical Children’s Chorus. Originally, the Chorus offered two ensembles called Prep Chorus and Chorale, for children in grades 4-9.
Renamed the Berks Youth Chorus in 2012, BYC now houses three ensembles for grades 3-12. Choristers serves grades 3 and 4, the Chorale serves grades 5 and up, and the Mastersingers serves grades 8 and up. Each chorus meets weekly for up to 2.5 hours throughout the school year.
Educational Programming
Since 1992, the chorus has provided young singers the opportunity to perform in a variety of venues, from nursing homes and churches to concert halls and hospitals. Originally a classical music organization, Berks Youth Chorus has expanded its repertoire to include music from a wide array of cultures, time periods, languages, and religions. Our singers embrace that music is a celebration that connects people globally and crosses all boundaries.
Choristers learn music and singing fundamentals in a fun and energetic setting, participating in Chorus for Causes concerts (learn more about them below) and supporting the philanthropic efforts of their older peers. Choristers are a fantastic ensemble for young singers of all backgrounds to sing fun music, grow as musicians and feel part of a large, supportive, inclusive, creative community. Choristers establish fundamental skills that serve as a foundation for their musical future. They learn the basics of reading music and listening skills, so they can appreciate their voices for the amazing, creative instruments that they are. Our Choristers curriculum is designed to explore interesting and diverse topics in music culture, music in society, and music appreciation while teaching values of generosity and community.
Our music education curriculum for MasterSingers and Chorale gives singers the history of the music and helps them gain an appreciation of different genres, styles, and composers as they learn to perform confidently in a choral setting and achieve these objectives:
- Improve their overall musicianship;
- Advance skills in theory, sight singing and listening;
- Hone their vocal technique and tone production;
- Explore interesting and diverse topics in music culture, music in society and music appreciation.
Our singers’ curriculum also includes discussions in service leadership and community engagement. Our student-led Singers Council empowers our singers to further explore their potential as leaders in our community through ownership of their service learning in Chorus for Causes. Our music and activism explore and celebrate the diverse cultural heritage of our community. In addition to tackling new technical challenges in the music, our young people are developing leadership skills that will serve them in the music world and beyond.
This past year, BYC produced three concerts, performed at a variety of gigs and venues, and continued the third annual tradition of the “BYC Open Mic Night,” where singers sing, karaoke-style, for an audience of friends and family. The free event is as much an opportunity for singers to gain confidence in the spotlight as it is a chance for singers to cheer each other on and build a stronger sense of community.
Time in the Choirs
We frequently ask our singers to come out of their comfort zone. New singers are worried their voice isn’t good enough to fit in. Most singers are nervous before they perform. We encourage quiet kids to raise their hands to answer questions. Some of our singers’ voices change and drop far faster than anticipated. Mistakes are scary, change is uncomfortable, and stage fright is common.
BYC is the perfect place for shy singers to find their way because they’re not alone. Through guidance and by learning through experience, our young people learn to sing out, form friendships and find their way. They gain a sense of pride and accomplishment from a performance well done. This feeling stays with them long after they’ve sung their last note with BYC.
In open-ended questions about why singers enjoy BYC, they bring up the concept of ‘belonging.’ BYC isn’t just where they’ve made friends; it’s where they feel free to be all of themselves, together.
Chorus for Causes
In 2020, BYC created Chorus for Causes, a leadership and philanthropy program that brings together our choral programs with social activism and community advocacy. Singers in Chorus for Causes learn new music, research causes and needs in Berks County, and select one organization per semester to partner on musically driven activism. Led by MasterSingers on the Singers Council, students have explored domestic violence, immigration, cyberbullying, racial justice and immigration, LGBTQ rights, mental health awareness, and more. Music is a part of every important social movement. Chorus for Causes brings the contextual history of musical selections together with exploration of current issues to prepare young people to lead and inspire change in the world around
Recent partners include Helping Harvest, the Children’s Home of Reading, and Safe Berks.
Collaboration
Last year, we collaborated with a variety of other performers. We performed with Broadway actress Mandy Gonzalez in December, and we sang in a Black History Month concert alongside Vox Philia (adult chorus), Berks Sinfonietta (adult orchestra), and ensembles from Kutztown and Muhlenberg Colleges. We also hosted South African ensemble Thula Sizwe in March for workshops, a community sing and a concert, in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Youth Chorus and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.
We are performing more than ever before, including in museums, hockey games, and fundraising events, to give our singers as much performance experience as possible.
Creating an Inclusive Choir
Our headquarters of Reading, PA has been ahead of national trends in becoming a majority minority city more than a decade ago. Reading, which is Pennsylvania’s fourth largest city, has the highest percentage of Latino residents (68%) in the state. Within easy driving distance of Philadelphia and New York, Reading has attracted residents of Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Mexican heritage as an affordable and accessible city with opportunities for culture and business. Berks County, on the other hand, has remained largely white with little migration in or out of the mostly rural communities.
BYC has embraced demographic trends by implementing a sliding scale tuition. We also provide registration and marketing materials in Spanish, and our Executive Director speaks Spanish for families who need translation. For the 2023-24 season, 63% of students receive reduced tuition and/or scholarships, and 51% are minority students. BYC also provides accommodations such as multi-modal learning, small group sectionals, and regular parent check-ins.
Our music selections represent both students’ choices and staff emphasis on anti-racism and advocacy against systemic inequalities. Chorus for Causes provides young people with leadership and philanthropy opportunities to build their skills and learn how to use their voices for social change in the community. Our board has engaged in multi-year planning to establish strategies for expanding cultural competence, economic sustainability in a low-tuition environment, and diversification of our board. Given the small size and low turnover of our staff and board, it will be years before the board’s demographic makeup reflects our students. However, diversifying our leadership and program enrollment is an essential priority in the years ahead.
With this in mind, BYC’s Executive Director has continued to visit schools, community events, and meet-the-teacher nights all over the county to recruit new singers, including and especially in the city of Reading. Our singers represented 12 out of 18 Berks County school districts last year, as well as cyber-schooled and home-schooled students. BYC is investing in peer-to-peer singer recruitment so that young people throughout our county recognize BYC as an inclusive space for all, and we are developing new relationships with the administrative staff of the Reading School District to better spread program information with the largest district of our region.
Diversity in our leadership and personnel helps our singers feel seen and see themselves in our organization and helps them know that they belong. It helps BYC be more responsive to our singers’ needs, and those of their families. Recruitment of diverse populations of singers is as much a question of cultural inclusion as it is socioeconomic accessibility. Families must feel that our program is ‘for them,’ in addition to being affordable, and BYC is committed to taking the measures necessary to become as inclusive as possible for our community.
BYC’s Board holds frequent conversations with our youth about the meanings and perspectives represented in our music, and it is important that they see themselves in the music they sing. The singer-elected Singers Council continues to have members (their Co-Presidents) present at our board meetings. Our Board is inspired by their insightful questions, and the other singers are encouraged by their earnest inclusion in our leadership conversations. We hope to include our singers in the repertoire selection process over time, and will continue to emphasize the programming of repertoire by composers of underrepresented backgrounds.
Impact & Future Goals
BYC is a music education organization with a strong focus on community, friendship, and music performance. BYC strives to cultivate leadership, confidence, friendship, creativity, and joy for choral singing in young singers through diverse programming and musical excellence. We provide our singers with opportunities to lead and learn to lead while exploring the world through music. We call upon our singers to work together to solve problems, design creative solutions and explore perspectives they haven’t heard or considered before.
The reputation of BYC is growing in our local community, and we are setting our sights on expanding our reach more broadly. We recognize the huge social, emotional, and physical benefits of singing in a chorus, so we strive to be as inclusive and equitable with our recruitment as possible. Through activism, accessible tuition structures, and representative music selections, we aim to bring the enrichment of singing together in a chorus to the lives of the diverse young people in our community.
