World Children’s Choir™ - 16th Anniversary Celebration

Hansel and Gretel
by Humperdinck

 Saturday, March 18, 2006
Click here for pictures! (#7, 8 ,9)

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Tickets/Information:
info@worldchildrenschoir.org
703-734-0621

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They stand 4 deep and 12 across, girls and boys, ages 4 through 18. The girls are in long white dresses. The boys are in jacket and tie. The piano begins. The audience goes quiet.

And then, the room is filled with the sweet sound of music:

We must dream of a world safe for children.
We must dream every child can be free….

It is the sound of the World Children’s Choir – which has a sound like no other children’s choir. In this choir, all singers are taught in the Italian Bel Canto style of singing, which produces soloists who sing with a sweet vibrato and heartfelt tone, rather than the traditional choral style of singing with straight and blended tones. The result is a rich and beautiful sound that fills the room – and leaves the audience spellbound.

The World Children’s Choir was founded in 1990 by Sondra Harnes, who is still its Artistic Director today. “My mission is to train children to sing songs of joy, hope and peace with beauty and artistry,” explains Ms. Harnes. James Selway, the Associate Director of the choir, helps to supply the inspirational songs that the choir sings. In the last several years, Mr. Selway has written many compositions for the choir, including “With One Dream,” which he wrote three days after the events of 9/11.

A number of the World Children’s Choir’s CDs can now be seen in stores around the metropolitan DC area, including a compilation of Mr. Selway’s compositions We Must Dream, For the Beauty of the Earth, and a holiday recording, The Peace of Christmas. Many of the stores that have begun to carry the CDs like the fact that the choir (itself a non-profit organization) donates a portion of CD sales to other children’s charitable organizations.

The World Children’s Choir has performed at the White House, at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, for heads of state and foreign dignitaries, and has traveled abroad to perform in countries such as Ireland where the Choir raised money for local refugee councils underneath the auspices of the United Nations Refugee Agency. In 2005 WCC held its first International Arts/Peace Camp in Timisoara, Romania.

Many of the choir members’ parents talk about how their children became more poised and outgoing after being in the choir. Others talk about the wonderful friendships their children have forged. And others talk about the beautiful voices their children have developed.

And, in the end, it all comes back to the music and that wonderful sound. One choir mother remembers when they were on tour in Ireland. She was standing outside the chapel at Trinity College in Dublin, just before the concert was to begin. A professor stopped to ask her what was going on. She explained that the World Children’s Choir from America was about to sing. Momentarily, the choir began to sing in beautiful harmony, amplified by the wonderful acoustics of Trinity Chapel. “But that cannot possibly be the sound of children’s voices, can it?” the professor gasped in awe. But it was; it was the World Children’s Choir.

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