Georgia Boy Choir touring China
The Georgia Boy Choir began a 17-day concert tour of China this week that includes performances in Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Kunming and Shanghai.
In addition to giving concerts and master classes, the 29-member touring choir will get to climb on the Great Wall and visit Atlanta-born panda Mei Lan.
The choir's first Chinese concert was at Beijing University on Tuesday. A crowd of more than 2,000 responded to the Georgia singers, ages 9 to 19, with "thunderous applause, foot-stomping and bouquets of flowers," said choir executive director Adisa Nickerson.
Artistic director David R. White had planned to take his former choir, the Atlanta Boy Choir, on a China tour. But its board, with the group $250,000 in the red, fired him last year for making commitments the directors believed the group couldn’t afford. White, who had led the Atlanta Boy Choir for eight years, blamed the board for not raising the necessary funds.
Shortly after the ugly split, some former Atlanta Boy Choir parents formed the Georgia Boy Choir, with White, who previously led the Boy Choir of the Carolinas and Florida's Singing Sons, along as artistic director. The group just completed its inaugural season. Roughly half of its 100 members sang under White in the Atlanta Boy Choir.
On tour, the Georgia Boy Choir is slated to appear on a live Chinese television broadcast, perform with several Chinese children's choirs and stay a few nights in the homes of members of the Chengdu Children's Choir.
Some of the group's Chinese concerts will be broadcast live over the Web (schedule: www.georgiaboychoir.org/tourbroadcast ).
The singers know to keep their passports handy. Officials announced last week that the Georgia Boy Choir will serve as the choir-in-residence at Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford, England, in July 2011.
