The Greater Richmond Children’s Choir is dedicated to bringing together boys and girls from diverse backgrounds to experience the joy of singing and to gain a life-long love for good music through age-appropriate vocal training. The GRCC strives to nurture the unique gift each child brings, to encourage all to reach for excellence, and ultimately, to create responsible and compassionate citizens of the world. Now in its thirteenth season, GRCC includes 85 choristers, ages 8-18 in five ensembles representing over 50 different schools in Richmond city and the surrounding counties. GRCC is a non-profit corporation providing need-based scholarships to over 30% of the children, and rehearses weekly at Grace & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in the inner city.
The Greater Richmond Children’s Choir is multicultural in its diverse membership, its repertoire, and its audience outreach locally and abroad. GRCC choristers have sung in over thirty-five different languages representing more than fifty different ethnic and religious groups worldwide. In the 2009-10 Season GRCC is collaborating with the internationally acclaimed Ugandan native instrument ensemble, Kinobe & Soul Beat Africa, performing together and producing a beautiful recording of songs in the Ugandan native language of Luganda. Other music this Season will include American folksongs and spirituals as well as John Rutter’s Mass of the Children, and a Virginia premiere of an e. e. cummings poem set by Allan Blank. In the 2008-09 Season the choir premiered a new work written for GRCC by James Erb and two Algonquin language songs by Sharon Sun Eagle of the Mattaponi Native American Tribe arranged by the GRCC directors and choristers. Other performances included a Nigerian song in Yoruba, an Indic carol in Hindi, Sanskrit and English, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. And during the 2007-08 Season GRCC added to its repertoire an Islamic song sung in Arabic, a new work for symphonic and jazz orchestra using a Brazilian children’s song sung in Portuguese, and eight Chinese language songs. Fifty GRCC choristers were warmly received by their Chinese hosts in the summer of 2008 as the choir toured Beijing and Shanghai, presenting programs of Chinese and American music for and with groups of Chinese students.
The Pro Arte Choir of GRCC is recognized as one of the best choirs in the USA having been selected to perform at the 2005 National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Los Angeles. The Choir also performed at the 2006 Southeastern Regional Convention of the ACDA in Charleston, West Virginia. GRCC has collaborated with the Virginia Opera and the Virginia Holocaust Museum in performances of the children’s opera “Brundibar,” a work performed during World War II in the concentration camp at Terezin. GRCC was named Best Choir and Hope Armstrong Erb named Best Conductor in the 13th Concorso Internazionale di Canto Corale in Verona, Italy. GRCC has sung at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. and performed as the featured choir in the Field Studies International Festival 2000 at Carnegie Hall, NYC.
The choir has performed to full houses and critical acclaim with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Britten’s War Requiem, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings, Doug Richards’ A Mare Encheu and in numerous Holiday Pops concerts. GRCC has appeared with Mannheim Steamroller and with the country rock group Alabama in a benefit performance for cystic fibrosis research. GRCC members were seen on national television portraying the “French children’s choir” in the pilot episode of Commander in Chief starring Geena Davis on ABC in 2005, in a state-wide commercial for the Virginia Prepaid College Tuition Plan, and in a special spot on China TV during the choir’s tour which was broadcast internationally on the English-speaking Channel. GRCC’s highly praised compact disc A Light to the World features the award-winning Pro Arte Choir with RSO harpist Lynette Wardle in Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and also includes an eclectic set of a cappella sacred music of the season.
"The chorus of angelic voices soared to and through the hearts of the crowd."
- Richmond Times-Dispatch
Different Choirs of the GRCC:
The GRCC is made up of five choirs to accommodate all singing levels.
Three choirs of boys and girls with soprano and alto voices:
Treble Choir – entry level
Concert Choir – intermediate leve
Pro Arte – advanced level
Two choirs including tenors and basses
Cavalieri Choir – all-male choir of tenors and basses
Cantare – combined Pro Arte and Cavalieri Choirs
"The (GRCC) featured choir performance was truly one of the finest that I have heard since these festivals began 10 years ago."
- Linda Torres, Festival Artistic Director, Field Studies International Festival 2000 at Carnegie Hall
Our Mission...
The Greater Richmond Children's Choir is dedicated to bringing together boys and girls from diverse backgrounds to experience the joy of singing and to gain a life-long love for good music through age-appropriate vocal training. We strive to nurture the unique gift each child brings, to encourage all to reach for excellence, and ultimately, to create responsible and compassionate citizens of the world.
Our Philosophy...
Music is an expression of the human spirit; it gives voice to the divine within us. A positive choral experience creates a strong sense of community and mutual respect while promoting individual strength and self-discipline.
We strive for musical excellence. Every child has potential for musical growth, and every child has a place in the GRCC, regardless of talent or experience. We recognize that the path to excellence is through dedication, self-discipline, and teamwork. Skills developed in choral training are skills for life. Furthermore, students who study music are better prepared for academic rigor.
Music has been called the international language and has the power to bring greater understanding across cultures. The GRCC recognizes the strength to be found in diversity and therefore actively recruits singers from a wide variety of cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Choristers experience a broad range of choral literature including classics, premieres of new music, jazz, spirituals, gospel, musical theater, opera, folk and world music. Students learn about the cultures and languages in which the repertoire was written. The choirs have sung in over thirty languages including English, Latin, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Czech, Zulu, Hawaiian, Korean, Hebrew, Georgian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Algonquin, and Elvish. Choristers receive instruction in music theory, sight-singing and ear training. Attention is given to voice placement and healthy use of the body while singing the repertoire and warm-up exercises. Music is memorized for performances.