I would say when I was 9 or 10 I started doing gospel choir, and I was with them for about two years.
I was an altar boy and a choir member.
I had always sung in choirs. Even when it was something to be laughed at or made fun of, you know, in school. And I was always the kid who was picked at the Christmas concert to sing the solo, you know, while the other kids snickered in the front few rows.
Our mandate is to sing for everyone. We don’t just sing for one group or sing one genre… This is everybody’s choir.
At St. Francis de Sales in Atlanta, we do not have an organ. We do not have rehearsals during the week. We do not have a professional choir.
As a child, I was an active Christian. I used to love the school choir and remember the carol service as always such an emotional thing.
As a boy soprano in the high school choir, I later sang a solo during the carol service at Canterbury Cathedral, but I was too young to secure the Freddy Eynsford-Hill role in our production of ‘My Fair Lady’ – and far too timid to have thought to audition for it.
I loved going to church. I enjoyed being a part of the choir and just doing things in and around the church. But as a young girl, I certainly enjoyed watching and listening to my dad.
I actually started singing in church when I was about five years old. I remember looking at the choirs and just hearing all of those great big beautiful voices. And there was this one woman who could just wail. And I remember trying to sing like her when I was like going home.
Since I first fell in love with choral music when I was 18 and began composing at 21, I’ve been listening to these recordings of British choirs. I just fell in love with that sound – that pure, clean, pristine sound – and I think it’s probably been the biggest influence on my sound.
When I started learning the violin, my choir teacher thought I could sing. But when I first got on stage, I froze!
There was a point in the ’80s when I looked out at my audience and I saw people that – were I not on the stage – they’d sooner slug me as they walked by me on the sidewalk. And I realized that I was way beyond the choir.
There must be four or five hundred choirs here in London alone. In a way, there’s nowhere else on Earth I could go and get this level and passion for singing in the one place.
I am not saying that Hitler was a choir boy. But I am saying, let him who was innocent in the Second World War cast the first stone.
We had a nine-piece choir on ‘Aw Yeah.’
Ever since I was a child I’ve always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there’s always a melody in there.
Documentaries are a powerful and effective way of bridging the gap between worlds, breaking through to new audiences that wouldn’t otherwise be engaged – in essence, not preaching to the choir.
I went to an art school, so I was a choir boy.
The Pentecostals had horns, drums, guitars, huge choirs, and screaming and dancing and all kinds of stuff. That was for me.
I actually grew up being part of the kids’ choirs, so I knew ‘Joseph’ basically my entire life. We’ve brought in this new multimedia aspect that really makes the show jump off the stage and into the audience.
I was part of the Atlanta Boy Choir probably like fourth and fifth grade. I personally didn’t enjoy the type of music that we were doing. I was more into like whatever was on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
I can imagine myself as an old man writing music for choir or orchestra. I don’t know that I’ll be touring six months out of the year in a rock band when I’m 60.
I always sang in church always was in a gospel choir and directed choirs and always performed, but I never thought of it as a powerful thing.
I always sang in church always was in a gospel choir and directed choirs and always performed, but I never thought of it as a powerful thing.
My mother was truly my saving grace, because she would take me to church with her. I would see my mother smiling in the choir, and I wanted to know this God that made her so happy. If I had not had that faith in my life, I don’t know where I would be right now.
I once saw my mother playing Mary Magdalene in a parish event. But she had to put the role aside in order to go and front the choir who were singing at the same occasion. She left the stage halfway through the Crucifixion.
I was raised in a Jewish family, but since I was adopted, my parents sent me to Hebrew school and Bible chapel, so I got the best of both worlds – singing in both a choir in Bible chapel and a chorus in Hebrew school. It shaped me and my voice.
Everybody’s like, ‘You’re tall. You didn’t play basketball?’ They asked me when I was a freshman in high school, and basketball practice was the same time a lot of stuff happened with choir. And I picked choir, which, normally, people would scratch their heads at, but it worked out okay.
I was in the choir before. I don’t know if a lot of people know that.
I knew how to sing in choirs and sing in church, but I didn’t know how to sing in a studio. That’s what Darlene and the Blossoms taught me to do – to be a studio singer.
Sometimes I think the choir gets a little ticked with me because I haven’t sung in a long time and I can sing.
It was what I did after school. I’d learn a song in choir that day and I’d sing it, all the parts.
I hope that, somewhere, Mom and Dad are proud that little Walter is performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
There’s this thing where Asian parents force you to play an instrument at an early age, but god forbid you like it and want to pursue it professionally! But, as a kid, I never did choir, and didn’t sing.
If we can take Harry Reid out, we can take our country back. I’m not here to preach to the choir. I’m here to organize the army.
Hey, I was raised in the church. I was an altar boy and a choir member. I almost became a priest – until common sense grabbed hold of me.
All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth – in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world – have not any subsistence without a mind.
The church was everything: our social engagements, Sunday morning, Sunday evening. Wednesday night was the hour of power. We had Bible study on certain days. Saturday afternoon was choir practice. I wanted desperately to be a good Christian.
I do sometimes feel like I function within an echo chamber and I’m just kind of preaching to the choir.
When I was growing up, I’d be in the choir. My mum was the organist in the church, so I’d sing in the church.
Gospel music was very prevalent in my house. My mother also loved Nat King Cole. That was some of the first music that I heard. Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole and the Mississippi Mass Choir.
I worked at Dollywood when I was a kid. Then I worked at Opryland. I worked at a variety of theater things in Atlanta. I was also in a choir for two years where we did ‘Annie’ and ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.’
I always sang in school choirs and went on tours to other countries. I have always loved it. It’s a very communal thing, and you really connect with people.
Preaching to the choir actually arms the choir with arguments and elevates the choir’s discourse. There’s a reason the right does it and does it well and triumphs.
There’s always the cliche of the choir shouting and clapping. OK, you have to do that, but there’s also introspective parts, parts where you just follow someone that’s preaching. There’s lots of different emotions and moods that a service requires.
I grew up spending a lot of time in church, almost every day, whether in choir rehearsal or praise team or Bible study – there was always a reason.
I had many, many mentors that I worked with. Music teachers, choir directors, directors in summer stock or in regional theater. You know, people I was able to work with repeatedly and learn from who were really sort of appropriate people for me to work with at a given time in my development as an actor.
I truly thought I was going to be in pop music. And then I joined a choir to meet girls, and everything changed in the first rehearsal.
I guess I originally got the bug for performing when I was in choirs and school stuff and all that. I don’t know when. I guess I decided to do it because a lot of people said I was good, and I liked the attention.
I’ve been singing since I was like 7 years old in the choir at church, so I do have a little bit of a voice.
Anybody can reach anywhere from five to 15 million people weekly making a president look like an idiot, as I did back then, or Tina Fey did with Sarah Palin… You’re always preaching to the choir one way or the other.
As a kid, I sang in the school choir.
I have a choir in my church, and we travel all over the world.
I will sing whatever I’m given to sing. Growing up, I would sing anything that I was given. If the choir needed a first tenor, I would sing first tenor. If they needed a bass, I would sing bass. Throughout my life, I just figured out ways to hit notes I needed to hit.
The choir tries to perform for everyone. It enables us to be very diversified with our audiences.
My mom is the piano player in my dad’s church – she’s also the choir director – and she’s just a musician through and through.
I like to keep fit, and when not gardening or singing solo or in a choir, I cycle, play tennis, swim, dance, and practise yoga.
