The Gilroy High School Chamber Singers’ Carnegie Hall debut
moved grown men to tears.
The Gilroy High School Chamber Singers’ Carnegie Hall debut moved grown men to tears.
Members of the audience in New York City’s hallowed music hall dabbed at their eyes and shot to their feet for a thundering standing ovation after the final notes of “When God Decided to Invent” ended with a bang. At that moment, not a single choir member wasn’t grinning furiously.
For the 15 minutes before that, Choral Director Phil Robb and the 28 teenagers owned the stage, sending their voices to the gilded ceiling for what some called a “heavenly performance.”
“I got teary,” admitted bass William Hoshida, 17, once he managed to catch his breath after the concert. “And I don’t cry.”
Frantic, last-minute preparations, jittery nerves and headaches melted away once the chamber singers opened their mouths and let the sheer magnitude of their surroundings wash over them, several said.
“My heart was racing a million miles a second but as soon as we started singing, everything was calm and we were able to perform the best we’ve ever performed,” said alto Emily Crocker, 17. “It changed my life and I was moved to tears by every one of our songs. It was indescribable, unforgettable, I loved it.”
When Andrew Carnegie, the philanthropist who built the sought-after venue, laid the cornerstone of the legendary building at the intersection of 57th Street and 7th Avenue in mid-town Manhattan, he said “It is probable that this hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country.”
When the Chamber Singers took the stage and gazed out on the sea of chairs – 2,804 to be exact – upholstered in red velvet and filled with their loved ones, they joined the likes of history’s political and musical icons. They stood where Martin Luther King, Jr. marked the 100th birthday of fellow civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois, where the Beatles twisted and shouted, and where Tchaikovsky conducted on opening night in 1891 before New York’s elite.
Renowned for its beauty, history and acoustics, Carnegie Hall represented months and years of hard work and displayed the singers’ talent in a way many had never heard before.
“When I heard them call the Gilroy High School choir over the intercom, chills just ran down my back,” said bass Brad Scherck, 18. “It’s hard to describe how pretty it was.”
The GHS Chamber Singers performed four songs ranging from folk to spiritual with two particularly meaningful songs on the bill – “Sanctus” by composer Ola Gjeilo, who was in the audience, and “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” – a song that received rave reviews earlier that morning when the choir performed it at an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem and was written by Moses Hogan, a composer who died several years ago of a brain tumor.
“I was teary eyed,” said Andre Thomas, the conductor who directed the concert’s second mass choir and a friend of Hogan.
After praising the singers, Thomas reminded the audience that none of them would be there without the painstaking direction of their teachers.
“These directors don’t just teach subject matter,” Thomas said, asking Robb and the other directors to rise for the loudest round of applause of the evening. “They teach from their hearts.”
After the crush of students and families left the hall, exchanging kisses and high fives, they reunited with Robb for the first time since he stepped offstage.
“Mr. Robb was so happy,” said soprano Janae Lance, 16. “He had a smile on his face the whole time.”
“I really enjoyed conducting them,” Robb said later, seated at a table at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square – a fitting scene for the choir’s post-performance celebration – still decked out in his formal attire. “Because they were so well prepared, the kids were on top of things and that made it fun.”
Almost like a father to some of the students, Robb rushed around to make sure his singers were properly hydrated and ready for their 15 minutes of fame in the hour preceding their performance.
“I want to make sure we don’t rush anything and I want to make sure my headache goes away,” he said with a laugh just before he took the stage. “I want to take it all in. I don’t want to miss anything. This is the real deal.”
Relaxing with his singers among the memorabilia of countless musical icons at the Hard Rock, Robb said the emotion of the moment hadn’t yet hit him like he knew it would in the coming days. After his choir opened the concert under his direction, he stepped offstage and they joined a mass choir to perform another 30 minutes of music under Simon Carrington, a British conductor and professor at Yale University.
“I had to leave them onstage,” Robb said. “By the time we did get together, it was an hour later and a lot of the intensity and emotion had died away.”
Nonetheless, Robb praised his choir as the bus jostled its way back to the Roosevelt Hotel.
“This is going to be a tough group to say goodbye to,” he said. “This has been a collection of incredible events. Carnegie Hall turned out to be the crowning moment of a great week.”
Performing for composer Ola Gjeilo.
Rehearsing with conductor and Yale University professor Simon Carrington.
