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| One Voice Children's Choir appeared on America's Got Talent. I don't think, though I could be wrong, that they were judged overly favorably. They're awfully white-bread for a competitive national program of this nature. |
One of the nice things about my frequently being awake during the twilight hours is that my Uncle Scott often has to be up during those times as well. He's usually waiting for something to happen so he can leave the hospital, and has time to kill. We message, talk, or otherwise communicate. I love my Uncle Scott.
Uncle Scott kills time when he's stuck at the hospital and there's too little time to go to sleep and he has nothing better to do by watching YouTube videos. He's recently gotten me started watching the One Voice Children's Choir, directed by native Japanese BYU grad Masa Fukuda. It's a choir of (surprise, surprise, since it's based in Utah) mostly white kids. Some ethnic children are in the group as well. they sing like white kids. They sing the way I think children should sing. They don't over-embellish. They sing their melodies and harmonies as written and directed. They dress in the uniform of the day.. They don't look like a bunch of male and female Jonbenets. They don't draw attention to themselves unless they're singing solos, and do so only subtly even then. In short, they show appropriate choir decorum.
If you listen to them, you won't find them to be the most exciting group you've ever heard. Yet, as they age (it's a multi-age choir from ages five to eighteen) some of them start to show genuine talent. One of their either present or former singers, Lexi Walker, is showing promise as a solo performer.
Lexi Walker, either Once Voice Children's Choir alum or present member, sings my favorite carol. My mum taught it to me in French when I was barely two. It brings back gingerbread feelings to me.
Most of these kids won't bowl you over with their voices. They sing at age-appropriate levels. The teens seem to be given a bit more latitude, or perhaps they're just given more difficult parts. They don't try to be junior Beyonces, embellishing melodies all over scales and beyond. Some viewers will be put off by the whiteness of it all, but it takes place in Utah. Where is a prospective youth choir director in Utah going to find a majority of singers who have training in music fundamentals? My guess is, in Utah, that would be mostly among the Caucasian population. Other races are not excluded.
This probably isn't an example the group's best song, mainly because the ending is anticlimactic, but it captures the essence, the age difference, the degree to which the choir takes direction, and the age-appropriateness of the group.
