News | Los Angeles Master Chorale Receives Chorus America Education Outreach Award
The Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC), led by Music Director Grant Gershon, received Chorus America's prestigious 2008 Education Outreach Award. The $2,500 award is presented to a Chorus America member ensemble whose education outreach program demonstrates mission-based program development, viable music education, effective management and fiscal integrity, a commitment to artistic excellence, and a collaboration that is sustainable, beneficial, and meaningful for all partners. Chorus America, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering choral music and serving choral organizations across the country, is the nation's leading voice for the choral arts.
LAMC's Voices Within program, the project for which it won the award, has engaged nearly 22,000 elementary school children since its launch in 2001. A collaboration among the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Los Angeles County Public Schools and a dozen teaching artists, Voices Within pairs a lyricist, a composer, and a singer with a fifth- or sixth-grade classroom for a 10-week residency during which teams of students compose the music and lyrics for their own original songs based on a theme taken directly from their curriculum. The students perform their compositions for an all-school assembly, and often in other community venues as well. They are joined in the assembly by the Los Angeles Master Chorale Chamber Singers in a musical arrangement that fully integrates them with the student vocalists. Students and their families are invited to attend a LAMC dress rehearsal at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Voices Within is an educational artists' residency program developed for the Los Angeles Master Chorale by Marnie Mosiman in collaboration with Bernardo Solano, Penka Kouneva, David O and Doug Cooney.
For further information about the Los Angeles Master Chorale's education programs, please call Education Programs Manager Kevin Koelbl at (213) 972-3113, or log on to www.lamc.org.
About Chorus America Chorus America strengthens choral organizations and provides their leaders with information, research, leadership development, professional training, and advocacy to help them deliver the best possible contributions to their communities and to the choral art. Chorus America provides invaluable news, resources, and expertise delivered in myriad accessible ways. Its programs bring professionals and volunteers together to learn and collaborate in a friendly, supportive environment that promotes networking, information exchange, and shared goals. Chorus America speaks with a strong and unified voice to increase recognition of choral singing as an essential part of society. More than 1,600 choruses, individuals, arts organizations, and businesses are members of Chorus America.
About The Los Angeles Master Chorale The mission of the Los Angeles Master Chorale is to present and preserve the comprehensive choral repertoire at the highest artistic level; to educate through performances, residencies and mentorships; and to create access to an art form that is one of the richest and most complex expressions of the human spirit. Since its founding in 1964, LAMC has presented more than 450 concerts, including choral music from the earliest writings to the most recent contemporary compositions. In 2001 Grant Gershon became Music Director, and in 2003 LAMC became one of two resident companies in Walt Disney Concert Hall, launching a period of incredible artistic and organizational growth. The Chorale has commissioned 21 and premiered 51 new works, and has recorded 6 CD's. LAMC performs a season of eight concerts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, plus two performances of the Messiah Sing-Along (in its 27th year); family-friendly Holiday Wonders concerts in December; and performs regularly with the L.A. Philharmonic. The Los Angeles Master Chorale has more than 1,000 subscribers, serves over 40,000 audience members of all ages, and provides education outreach to approximately 13,000 children each year.