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Boys Choir of Harlem

About this Artist

In the 2002/2003 season, THE BOYS CHOIR OF HARLEM celebrated the 34th anniversary of its founding by Walter J. Turnbull. Today The Boys Choir of Harlem (“BCH”) is internationally recognized for its virtuoso performances and innovations in the thousand-year-old art of the boy choir. The BCH is well-known for the breadth of its repertoire, which ranges from staples of the European canon such as Haydn, Bach, and Mozart through more modern composers such as Ginastera and Poulenc, to contemporary works from such artists as Bernstein and Hailstork. African-American spirituals, gospel, jazz, pop, and hip-hop are choreographed to give The Choir a magnetic stage presence that has won critical and popular acclaim.

The Choir makes three or four national tours each year and averages 100 engagements in over 24 states annually. Four Asian tours have included performances in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The BCH opened its 2001/2002 season with a 10-day residency in Matsumoto-shi, Japan at the Saito Kinen Festival, founded by conductor Seiji Ozawa, who is also the Festival’s Music Director.

Among the BCH, Inc.’s recent accomplishments are the 1997 debut of The Girls Choir of Harlem at Alice Tully Hall (which was the lead story the following morning in The New York Times and featured on 60 Minutes); an ongoing campaign to replicate its program across the country, supported by the Kellogg Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts; and President Clinton’s 1997 bestowal of the National Medal of Arts upon Dr. Turnbull and The Boys Choir of Harlem.