YPC at River to River Festival

The River to River Festival takes place each summer from June through September, in a variety of public venues that canvas all of Downtown New York - from Chambers Street down to the southern tip of Manhattan and across the island from river to river. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City will open up the River to River Summer Stars series at the Michael Schimmel Center at Pace University on July 9th at 7:30 PM

Composer Bruce Adolphe’s “Singing this Piece” has been a crowd favorite not only at the Transient Glory VI concert, but also at the YPC’s 10th Annual Spring Celebration concert. Bruce Adolphe visited the YPC Concert Chorus prior to Transient Glory VI to discuss his work. The footage can be viewed on the YPC website.

Join the YPC for this free concert and enjoy the masterful compositions and singing of Transient Glory VI.

Spring Celebration '07

Guest Writer:
Jeffrey Peralta
Young Men Chorus

This past Saturday was YPC's Annual Spring Concert. I felt that the concert was filled with joy, entertainment and or course tears, but tears of joy as we saw the seniors move on to accomplish greater things. There were also tears of sadness as we see one of our conductors move on to pursue her Masters degree at Yale University, which we are extremely happy for (even though it means her leaving us). I know I will greatly miss her.

The overall performance was great. I thought the Junior Chorus was adorable, like always. Intermezzo was great, and cute, especially the piece "When I Sing". They looked charming while they were doing the charleston. As a member of the Young Men chorus, I thought we were amazing. The pieces that caught the audience's attention were "Ramkali" which is an Indian Raga with very interesting rhythmical patterns, "Homeland" which is a song of beauty and nationalism, and of course, "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat". It was my personal favorite because I am a Broadway and Showtunes freak.

The Concert Chorus delighted the audience with their performance of "Every Stop on the F Train" which was then followed by "A-Train" and "Heaven Bound Train" making it a night of...trains. Following every division's performance was the tutti. It was fantastic being a part of one of the four divisions coming together on stage and singing beautifully.

The chorus has greatly influenced me and hopefully other choristers as well that are unfortunate and don't have music programs in their schools. Most choristers and I feel that best friends are made in this chorus because we all have the love of music in common, leading to friends that last a lifetime. Along with experiences that you will never forget.

Bang on a Can!

The YPC is quickly becoming New York City’s “go to” choir, despite the ages of our choristers. This past Sunday’s performance at the “Bang on a Can” Festival is yet another example. The YPC Concert Chorus sang “Three Heavens and Hells” by the magical composer Meredith Monk, who was also present at the performance. It was wonderful to have Meredith with us where she helped to bring the piece alive for the audience. The new arrangement of this work was premiered by the YPC at the 92^nd Street Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall, on April 21^st at our Transient Glory VI concert. “Three Heavens and Hells” was also previewed by the YPC’s Radio Chorus on WNYC New York Public Radio’s Soundcheck with Jon Schaefer. The entire Transient Glory concert was broadcasted for WNYC’s American Music Festival 2007 on Tuesday May 29^th.

The Bang on a Can festival is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music. With an ear for the new, the unknown and the unconventional, Bang on a Can strives to expose exciting and innovative music as broadly and accessibly as possible to new audiences worldwide. 26 hours of continual music was performed during the 2 day event. For about ten seconds the crowd was on their feet to give the Concert Chorus a standing ovation. That is definitely our interpretation of performance Heaven.

The YPC would like to thank composer and Bang on a Can founder Michael Gordon for giving us the opportunity to be part of such a groundbreaking musical movement.

If you want to hear the YPC sing “Three Heavens and Hells” by Meredith Monk why don’t you join us this Saturday at our 10^th annual Spring Celebration at the 92^nd Street Y Kaufmann Audition at 8PM or on one of our many concerts throughout the city until July 9^th – please check out the ypc.org webpage for our calendar.

By the way, if you performed, or was one of the audience members standing at the World Financial Center, leave a comment with your interpretation of the event.