With its Summer Choir Camp and Recruitment Drive, the Long Beach Youth Chorus (LBYC) will kick off its new season on a high note despite setbacks in 2020.
Fresh off a performance at the Mayor’s Tree Lighting Ceremony, LBYC started 2020 with plans for a regular season. However, much like the entire world, it was blindsided by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By mid-March of last year, the youth chorus had canceled rehearsals and postponed its scheduled April cabaret. By May, its artistic director announced he was leaving.
“It was a challenge,” said Executive Director Stan DeWitt, noting that rehearsals eventually resumed virtually.
Finding innovative ways to keep going, the choir recorded clips of themselves and sent them to LBYC where staff created cohesive videos.
“We were so proud of our kids who really did a great job getting [the videos] done,” DeWitt said. “It was a struggle for both us and for them, but they did it and it came out really well.”
Also successful was LBYC’s search for its new artistic director, hiring Stevie J. Hirner, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California.
Hirner is a graduate teaching assistant in the Thornton School of Music and serves as the lead conductor for the Apollo Chorus at USC.
With Hirner in the team and the state fully reopened, the Summer Choir Camp is slated to take place from August 11 to 13.
The camp will have vocal clinics with Dr. Joshua Palkki from California State University, Long Beach, Yu Hang, doctoral student at USC and Ernest Harrison, artistic director for Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.
Tuition for the camp is $50 for non LBYC singers and $25 for existing singers.
Additionally, the LBYC registration has opened with the debut of Songbirds, a program for young musicians in second to fourth grade.
Songbirds will focus on music fundamentals like music reading and exploration as well as vocal technique.
Tuition for either Songbirds or the Chorus is $100 for the season.
“Hopefully those kids as they get older they will go into the older courses,” DeWitt said.
DeWitt noted that one of the things that pushed LBYC to return to in-person rehearsals is enrollment.
“Coming out of the pandemic we had two classes of seniors who graduated, so we’ve lost those kids, and we lost a few who decided that they could not hang in with the Zoom rehearsals,” he said.
The main motivation for LBYC’s in-person season kick-off, however, is the youth.
“It’s nice to be able to do stuff together again,” DeWitt said. “We’re looking forward to our in-person rehearsals again where we can actually be in the same room and they can all be working together because they really missed that.”
For those looking to support LBYC, the organization will host its first mini-golf tournament on July 31 at Golf N Stuff in Norwalk.
For more information on the Long Beach Youth Chorus visit the website here or follow them on Instagram @longbeachyouthchorus.
