Ear to the Grindstone : New Youth Chorale Gets a Lesson in Discipline

Eileen Moss, director of the Youth Master Chorale, tempers her passion for music with an uncompromising call for discipline.

“We have students here from all over the district eager to sing,” Moss said as she motioned to about 50 youngsters who had just completed their vocal warm-ups in the Oak Park Elementary School auditorium.

“But what I want to give these kids is a sense of discipline, because they don’t see music as discipline. They have a lot of talent, and they think they can do it all by ear.”

Moss presides over the San Diego city schools’ newest summer program, a six-week immersion course in choral music. The course, which began June 24, was inspired by a visit to San Diego last spring by the Harlem Boys Choir.

Already Moss has an enrollment of 81 (50 girls and 31 boys), ages 9 through 17. To prepare her charges for their inaugural concert Aug. 4 at Point Loma Nazarene College’s Brown Chapel, Moss requires them to devote two hours a day, Monday through Thursday afternoons, to study and rehearsal.

On a typical afternoon, Moss leads all the students through their vocal warm-ups. She then divides the group into three classes, allowing the younger, less musically proficient students to attend classes in sight singing and ear training, taught by her assistants Pamela Matson and Suzanne Jones.

The youngest singers learn to sing scales and spell out simple melodic phrases with letters of the C major scale printed on cards lined up on their work tables. The intermediate students of solfeggio, the practice of singing and reading music according to the do-re-mi syllables, take down melodic dictation from their instructor at the piano. This is the aspect of choir singing Moss defines as discipline.

“I decided that if I was going to lead a group like this, the singers would have to read music,” Moss said. This attitude differs from the practice of most gospel training in black churches, where choral music is taught by rote rather than from the printed page.

“I know that I’m a maverick for trying to change that,” Moss said. “Many sing very well by ear. But when they get out in the real world, someone will put a musical score in front of them and expect them to sing it. Then they won’t be able to compete.”

Moss’ more musically advanced singers spend part of the afternoon rehearsing the choreography to a popular Bobby Brown song, “My Prerogative.”

“When I learned that we would have to give a concert, I decided we would need some kind of production number,” Moss said. “But our main focus will be on choral masterworks. They are learning a ‘Missa Brevis’ by Benjamin Britten, a Bach motet and sections from Britten’s ‘Ceremony of Carols.’ ”

Moss stumbled upon her choreographer, 16-year-old Crystal Flournoy, by accident. When the young singer from O’Farrell School for the Visual and Performing Arts signed up to sing in the chorale, her mother informed Moss she had experience in contemporary dance. Soon she was instructing the class and devising the group’s choreography for the Bobby Brown number.

According to Kay Wagner, the district’s program manager for visual and performing arts, the idea of forming the Youth Master Chorale grew from the vision of the Rev. Sherman G. Dunmore, pastor of San Diego’s Logan Temple A. M. E. Zion Church, who brought the famed Harlem Boys Choir here last April. The district provided free tickets for students at schools that requested them.

A former choral instructor at Morse High School and the director of the San Diego Civic Chorale, Moss petitioned the school board to let her train a children’s chorus along the lines of the Harlem Boys Choir in a pilot program during the summer school session. Moss’ proposal had the wholehearted support of Deputy Supt. Bertha Pendleton. According to Wagner, Pendleton’s advocacy helped sway the school board, which in recent years has tended to eliminate arts programs rather than fund new ones.

“Because it was a program that came from people in the community rather than from administrators, the board was 100% supportive, “ Wagner said. “I believe this is the type of program the board is looking for.”

Moss began testing and recruiting students in schools in Southeast San Diego, which explains why the majority of her singers are black.

“We recruited students from Baker, Horton, Kennedy (elementary schools) and Gompers (Secondary School) because the students from these schools had attended the Harlem Boys Choir concert and had responded to it with such enthusiasm,” said Pat Meredith, district acting coordinator for visual and performing arts. She added that Oak Park Elementary was chosen to house the youth chorale because it will be the new home of the district’s music magnet school.

Presenting a formal concert after a mere six weeks of training is a daunting challenge, Moss said.

“I thought I might have the singers for a year before I’d have to put them on stage. It does take a while to cultivate the smooth choral sound that is right for this music.”

But Meredith and other administrators wanted a “product” they could show to the community at the end of the pilot program.

“We would like members of the corporate community to see the potential of this program and help underwrite it on a regular basis,” Meredith said.

According to Wagner, the possibility of continued funding for the youth chorale is largely dependent on how much money the district receives from Sacramento.

“I would hate to have to choose between funding our regular music programs during class time and a special program like the youth chorale. What I want is more music overall.”