A Choired: Las Vegas has developed an ear for choral music

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004 | 8:48 a.m.

Poet John Milton (1608-1674)

What: Las Vegas Master Singers.

When: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Feb. 29.

Where: UNLV Beam Music Center Recital Hall.

Admission: Free.

Information: 895-3008.

What: African-American Music Festival.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Where: Beam Music Center's Rando Recital Hall.

Admission: Free

Information: 895-3332.

What: Desert Chorale performs "Let's Go to the Movies."

When: 8 p.m. March 27.

Where: Orleans showroom.

Admission: $24.95.

Information: 365-7111.

What: The Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society presents "An Evening of Choral Favorites."

When: 7:30 p.m. March 5.

Where: Clark County Flamingo Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road.

Admission: $10; $8 for seniors, students, military and disabled.

Information: 451-6672.

By day Anita Meyer is the administrative manager for the Las Vegas Philharmonic. On nights and weekends she is a local soloist and member of various choruses.

With a master's degree in voice, she has performed nationally and internationally, taught voice in Boston and performed with the Tanglewood Chorus in Boston under the direction of Leonard Bernstein.

Today what keeps the soprano devoted to the choral arts is simple.

"It's the camaraderie you have with other singers, the experience with the blended sound of the singers," Meyer said. "It's a magical experience, especially if you sing with an orchestra."

Meyer need never worry about singing alone. According to Chorus America, a national choral organization based in Washington, D.C., nearly 28.5 million American adults and children sing in choruses.

There are roughly 250,000 choruses throughout the country, and in 15 percent of American households, at least one adult has sung in one or more choruses.

The survey (released last February) confirmed for Chorus America that in a downturn economy, choirs are staying alive even when funding for performing arts is thin.

The centuries-old institution that flourished in European churches thrives today in sacred and secular settings.

"Choral music is a very vibrant art form," said David Weiller, director of choral studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "It speaks to people today as it always has."

As some of the best choirs in the West arrive in Las Vegas next week for the American Choral Directors Association Western Division convention, local directors, many of whom will attend, say Las Vegans not only want to sing, but that they take their singing seriously.

Community choruses have sprouted in recent years, even doubling in size. Clark County School District's music programs are so successful, Weiller said, they are modeled by school districts throughout the country.

And a year ago January, UNLV teamed with the Clark County School District and private schools to create the University Children's Chorale. The group has more than 100 singers and will likely continue to grow, Weiller said, explaining that the Indianapolis Children's Choir it's based on has more than 1,000 members.

"We're doing very high-quality repertoire, a wide variety, and kids are getting music theory and sight singing (reading from written music)," Weiller said.

Who's who

Weiller has seen the community change since he arrived in Las Vegas 20 years ago when UNLV had only one choir.

"We're doing OK," Weiller said. "There could be more, but the standard is being raised as the community grows."

While enthusiasm is high among chorus singers in Las Vegas, some directors and members in the choral community say that growing an audience is not easy.

"It's harder to get people to come to a choral music concert than an orchestra," Meyers said. "So many people are moving here, it's difficult to get the awareness out."

Choruses sing regularly. They perform in churches, at events, in libraries and in college and university auditoriums.

The Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society is celebrating its 41st season of performing masterworks from Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Dvorak.

The Celebrity City Chorus of Greater Las Vegas, an a capella, barbershop-style performance group that is part of the Sweet Adeline International Chorus, boasts that it is the only Sweet Adeline International chorus to increase its membership and competition scores for six years in a row.

Smaller groups such as gospel choirs, jazz ensembles, barbershop quartets, a gay and lesbian chorus, men's groups and church choirs also perform regularly.

"Church choirs are not as strong of a tradition in Las Vegas compared to cities with older established churches," Weiller said. "But that's something that's growing as the church grows."

Desert Chorale, a 60-voice adult community chorus that formed in 1984, performs classical and contemporary music. It's performed with such stars as Sarah Brightman and has visited Mexico, Canada, Washington, D.C., Disneyland and Northern Nevada.

Locally it presents between eight and 12 shows annually and offers a mentoring program each year to four outstanding high school musicians in the Clark County School District.

"We've been going 22 years and we have sell-out shows," director Nancy Helm said. "It serves a great purpose in our community. It exposes all kinds of people to good music.

"Some of our members are members of other church choirs and are choir directors."

Joceyln Kaye Jensen, director of the Las Vegas Masters Singers, a group that has performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, established the UNLV Women's Chorus & Nightingales, which is a non-auditioned ensemble, in 1992.

The group has 50 to 60 singers each semester and includes university students, high school students and community singers. It performs two or three times a semester and each year at the UNLV Women's Center's "Take Back the Night" event.

The Las Vegas Masters Singers has grown from 40 to 70 members since Jensen took over the chorus a year ago. The volunteer ensemble must pass an audition and devote a little more than their voices.

"They pay for their own music. They pay for their own uniforms," Jensen said. "Some of them sing in church choirs and other choirs throughout the community.

"It's a passion and that's what it's really all about."

Starting young

Getting children involved is critical to numbers down the line. Chorus America's survey found that 70 percent of adults in choir sang in choirs when they were young.

If schools are the birthplace of our future choruses, Las Vegas is fertile ground.

Last year's choir programs included 10,445 middle and high school students, out of nearly 270,000 students in the district.

More than 200 high school and middle school choirs performed last year at the Clark County School District's chorus festivals, and 475 students participated in an honors choir program, in which the best students in the district had an opportunity to work with out-of-town guest conductors.

Green Valley High School, a 2001 Grammy Award winner for its progressive music programs, was selected as having the best music program in the United States, which includes band, choir and orchestra. The school was invited to submit again for the 2005 Grammys.

"In Las Vegas we have quite a healthy music program across the board," Jensen said."Part of the philosophy is to include music in curriculum, rather than extra-curricular."

Lezlie Koepp, choir director at Keller middle school, is a strong advocate for the school district's music programs and sees firsthand the enthusiasm students have for singing. Koepp has 272 students in six choirs. Each choir has 55 to 60 singers.

"The spots here are coveted," Koepp said. "Last year I had 400 sixth graders sign up for choir and we could only take 120. I've got kids who are in two different groups.

"Las Vegas is a very high arts community. There's the Strip. A lot of students want to be performers."

The choirs participate in festivals, tours and fall concerts. Koepp has taken her choirs to perform at Disneyland and San Diego, and five of her students once competed successfully to sing in an honor choir at the American Choir Directors Association's regional meeting in Los Angeles.

"This year our choirs are performing for the Nevada Music Education Association in March," Koepp said.

"It's a good tool in discipline. If you cut out music, test scores are going to drop. Some kids are going to school just for music classes."

Test scores are high among her choir students, she said. Her choirs require students to have an advanced grade requirement.

For instructors, Koepp created a mentoring program to partner new teachers with veterans when she was president of the Nevada Chapter for the American Choral Directors Association.

"It helps build collegiality and makes sure new teachers coming and are getting veteran experience," Koepp said.

The big payoff

Marcia Neel, coordinator of secondary fine arts in Clark County, has been with the school district since 1979, when she joined the choral music program at Clark High School.

Neel says the students work hard.

"I can remember my first festival I was scared to death," she added, referring to the performance assessment program in the spring known as Choral Festivals that middle and high school students begin preparing for after the winter holidays.

"It really is a pressure performance. It's one thing to sing in school and another to perform in front of adjudicators and peers. The homework has to be done. You always do your best when you're really prepared. Most people don't know this. They think we can just get up on stage and do this.

"We rent Ham Hall. It's where rubber meets the road, they say."

But, Neel explained, "When our students leave us and go to college they've got that music with them for the rest of their lives. Many of them sing in churches and community ensembles."

Some students move on to community ensembles before they even hit college. The UNLV Chorus and Varsity Men's Glee Club includes high school students with its adult singers. Chorus members range in age from 15 to 75.

"And we have UNLV alumni that want to continue singing," Weiller said. "People who sang in high school 20 to 25 years ago who want to sing. It's a great way to share the beauty and joy of choral art. It's a very uplifting art form. For the performers, it's a great opportunity to be involved with intense music.

"There's nothing like live music and the chemistry between the performers and the audience. There are many varieties, gospel, jazz and spiritual."

Audience participation

While some directors say the choral community needs to grow its audiences, Robin Perry Allen, spokeswoman for Chorus America, said some groups across the nation are concerned about keeping audiences they already have.

"Everybody worries about that same thing," Allen said. "People wonder, 'Where's the audience going to be 15 years from now?'"

Allen said that fortunately for choirs, when times get tough and funding is spread thin, it's easier to sustain a chorus than other arts organizations.

Normally there is no concert hall to support and no cost of hiring an orchestra.

"There are few barriers for choruses as institutions," Perry said. "Here in Washington, D.C., there are many, many choruses. They range from Slavic men's choruses to major symphonic choruses that perform at Kennedy Center. There are smaller chamber choirs that are performing in churches."

In Las Vegas, 12-year-old Caresse Roubicek is just starting out in a beginning choir at Keller middle school. She sang in a choir while in elementary school and plans try out for an advanced choir at the school.

Seeing her teacher and singing with other students is the highlight of her day, she said, adding, "Ever since I joined, I've had a blast."

archive