Raising kids’ voices

When it comes to purity of tone, hauntingly beautiful timbre and the ability to transport listeners to a kind of aural nirvana, the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus occupies a special place in L.A.’s musical life. Now in its 18th year, this educational and performance program boasts five choirs and 225 choristers, ranging in age from 8 to 16. They blow away the adage that children should be seen and not heard.

In fact, members of the chorus’ top-tier Concert Choir have often been vocal scene-stealers. That was the case last fall when, 54 strong, they popped up with L.A. Opera -- literally from the floor -- at the climax of Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust.” A similar brand of larceny is likely to occur tonight when two dozen of them take to the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the company’s revival of Strauss’ “Die Frau Ohne Schatten.”

“It’s very empowering to children to realize they have this artistic ability,” says Anne Tomlinson, who’s been the chorus’ artistic director since 1994. “To my ear, there’s such beauty in the child’s voice that has been well-trained. It speaks directly into my soul. When they’ve worked hard and long and really understand a piece of music and a piece of poetry and bring those things together with their beautiful voices, it’s transforming -- for the listener and singer alike.”

These days, the chorus’ headquarters at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, where it’s been based since its founding in 1986, are a hotbed of activity. On a recent Tuesday night, as on every Tuesday from September through May, three rehearsals were in progress.

Sneakers and sweatshirts were the preferred mode of kid dress, with Tomlinson, 50, sporting a fashionable short bob, a colorful sweater and casual black pants.

While most other children were probably at home chowing down, playing with Game Boys or being coaxed into doing their homework, the largest group here was singing -- in Spanish. Maestra Tomlinson was rehearsing the 70-singer Concert Choir. The piece was a lullaby from John Adams’ “El Nino,” a 20th century Nativity oratorio the group performed last March with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Tomlinson, who has a music degree from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and a master’s in conducting from Northwestern University, was a church organist and a choirmaster for adults before picking up the children’s chorus baton. She says that, when considering applicants, she listens for a voice that’s healthy and natural in its production.

“We look for a person who hears pitches right in the center, a good sense of intonation,” she says. “We also look for that keenness -- does the child want to learn? We’re not looking for the perfect voice. That doesn’t exist.”

The chorus has trained more than 800 singers in its history, but few go on to professional singing careers. That’s not the point, says executive director Janet Wells. “Alumni say that what they’ve learned here have been tremendous life skills -- discipline, striving for excellence and being responsible,” Wells says. “The worldview they get, and the words and messages they’re exposed to, have opened up their world.”

To join the nonprofit organization, a child must audition. If accepted, as between a third and half of applicants are, a new member then is placed in an ensemble based not on age but on vocal ability, the quality of his or her musical ear, and actual choral experience.

Although choristers pay annual tuition, ranging from $450 for members of the Chamber Singers, a small ensemble of older girls, to $795 for those in the Concert Choir, scholarships are available. Four of the groups -- the Chamber, Preparatory, Apprentice and Intermediate ensembles -- sing for 90 minutes a week, and the Concert Choir meets twice a week. All children take five levels of musicianship classes and receive individual voice training and biannual evaluations.

Repertory is selected to fit each choir’s skill level, with the works varying from established classical pieces and art songs to arrangements of folk tunes from around the world. There’s also a smattering of pop standards, like the Duke Ellington-Irving Mills tune “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).”

Tomlinson says that, tackling an eclectic repertory, the children learn to sing in two dozen languages, including Finnish, German, French and Portuguese.

As for the choirs’ makeup, only one-third are boys, who, because their voices change, leave by age 14 or 15. The chorus sings only treble music (and nothing much below middle C), giving its sound its distinctive angelic quality.

Performing has its perks

In today’s MTV culture, where technology often trumps the old-fashioned, the chorus is an association that might seem anachronistic. But to Catie Williams, 13, who lives in West Los Angeles and is an eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake School, it couldn’t be more up to the minute. Now in her fourth year as a member, Catie sang in Adams’ “El Nino.”

“That was a really fun experience,” she recalls, “especially to be part of such a big production. I made a lot of friends, and I thought [director] Peter Sellars was really cool.

“Another thing I like about the chorus is the sense of community,” adds Catie, who says she might someday try to be an opera singer but now prefers listening to the Beatles, Madonna and the Rolling Stones.

Although the chorus is predominantly white, there are members of color. Whether they come from Simi Valley, Claremont, Compton or Manhattan Beach, however, these children all share one thing -- an abiding love of singing.

Not that the perks of performing with professional musicians don’t have their appeal. In recent years, choristers have appeared in concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and in such other L.A. Opera productions as “La Boheme,” “Tosca” and the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Last season, the Concert Choir appeared with the L.A. Philharmonic in four productions, including “Carmina Burana” and Mahler’s Third Symphony.

Eleven-year-old Alex Rosen of La Canada Flintridge has been a chorister for three years. He began as an Apprentice, was immediately moved to Concert Choir and is considered a veteran, having sung in four operas. Rosen, who says he likes the rock groups Led Zeppelin and Linkin Park, studies piano at home and plans on being a musician, though not necessarily a singer. He is composing something for the chorus.

“When I come here,” he says, “I can relax and leave everything else behind that makes me frustrated.”

The brown-eyed youngster will be one of the 24 children singing in “Die Frau,” a production that clocks in at four-plus hours. This group began rehearsing in the second week of December and has rehearsed several times a week since, with an additional five rehearsals at the Music Center. Tomlinson says it takes devoted parents to see such a job through, especially when there are both matinee and evening performances.

She explains: “We’re called an hour after curtain, because we’re not on until Act 2. We get there, do a music warmup, get into costumes and makeup, then come off stage and get out of costume, because Act 3 is the voices of unborn children. They will be heard and not seen.”

Tomlinson acknowledges that the schedule is challenging. The children “have to learn about time-management skills if they’re in demanding academic programs,” she says. “But they seem to love it.”

They also love the travel. In previous seasons, the chorus has journeyed to Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia, the Czech Republic and Poland. This spring, the Intermediate Choir will go to Seattle; in the summer, the Concert Choir will trek to Brazil.

Called by L.A. Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen “the best children’s chorus I have ever heard,” the group also has an outreach program and has been the subject of an Academy Award-nominated documentary short, “Sing!” Still, it’s not about to rest on its laurels. In July 2005, it’s scheduled to present the world premiere of a children’s opera it commissioned, “Keepers of the Night,” with music by Peter Ash and a libretto by Donald Sturrock.

“Fascinating music is being written for children’s choirs,” Tomlinson says. “Many composers are writing atonal and highly aleatoric work. It’s like a new instrument in the classical world. It’s this very modern music with this very pure tone. It makes a powerful statement.”

*

‘Die Frau Ohne Schatten’

When: Today, Wednesday and March 3, 6, 10, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m.

Where: Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

Price: $25-$170

Contact: (213) 365-3500