A Founder’s Vision

As a high school teacher, I found that boys – young men – were reluctant to sing.  I heard the same refrain from my colleagues directing school and adult choirs.  At the same time, as assistant conductor for San Francisco Boys Chorus, part of my duties included recruiting elementary school boys by visiting schools and leading singing games.  Contrary to my expectations, I was amazed to see the eagerness of young boys to join in.  I began to wonder what happened to boys between the ages of 10 and 15. Capturing and nurturing that eagerness was central to founding Ragazzi.

After establishing Ragazzi, I also began to explore issues of males’ relationships to each other and to the arts.  I discovered that when they worked together, males supported each other and were able to enjoy artistic expression.  I also discovered that, due to what can only be described as distorted thinking, singing has often been perceived by boys as a “girl” activity.  But in fact, there is a universal, world-wide tradition of male singing and so we decided to educate our Ragazzi boys about that and give them the opportunity to support each other as they explored this side of themselves.

In the early days, boys dropped out after they reached the age of 11.  But as we added more opportunities for changing voices, older boys began to take on the role leaders and mentors.  They felt free to express themselves and they began to see singing as something that belonged to them.  They continued to sing.

I have also discovered that boys really like to sing songs that are beautiful and expressive.  Time and time again, I’m still surprised to hear a boy say that his favorite song is the piece by Palestrina, or a lullaby by Britten, or a piece by Brahms.  Very rarely do loud, rhythmic pop songs hold our boys’ sustained interest.

Now that Ragazzi has grown to over 170 boys, there is a strong line of male leadership from our Young Men’s Ensemble to our alumni who come back as camp counselors and tour chaperones.  They articulate the standards to each other and the younger boys, serve as inspiration and model the chorister and personal standards that Ragazzi expects of its members.  And how they love to sing!

We have been told time and again by older boys and alumni (and their parents) that Ragazzi has been the single most important influence in developing their social and leadership skills.  So, Ragazzi has turned out to be a place where boys feel safe expressing themselves, artistically, and learn ways to work together as a team.  These are the skills that one needs to succeed in life, so the benefits of Ragazzi have extended far beyond the original vision of providing a safe place for boys to sing together.  Ragazzi is building strong citizens who are confident and cooperative and creative - a powerful bequest to society.

Joyce Keil

Artistic Director

Ragazzi Boys Chorus

Street Symphonies

 

                                          Ragazzi presents

                                       Street Symphonies, 

a concert in collaboration with Destiny Arts Center, a hip hop group from Oakland      dedicated to serving youth through the arts.

 

Saturday June 2 2012

7 p.m.

Trinity Church

Brittan and Alameda de las Pulgas

San Carlos, California

For tickets contact Ragazzi: 650-342-8785 or www.ragazzi.org

 

How did this collaboration come to be?  A year ago when on a plane, I happened upon a movie called "Street Dancing".  It was not a great movie, but the story intrigued me.  It was about a competition in New York City among hip hop dance groups.  The protagonists were desperate to win the contest, but suddenly lost their best dancer to a competing troupe.  Not only that, they were suddenly thrown out on the street with no rehearsal space.

 

In their wanderings, they came upon a beautiful, old building where a very traditional classical ballet school rehearsed.  As they asked to be given rehearsal space, the ballet director got a gleam in her eye. She offered to give them space if they would teach the ballet dancers to dance in the hip hop style.

 

As the story unfolds, the two groups are not compatible and they resist each other.  The hip hop dancers don't have the lean ballet lines and the ballet dancers can't loosen up enough.  They are not really able to dance in these new styles and in fact begin to clash in their interactions with each other.  Finally, they both agree to do what they do best and put on a show where their groups do their own dances and interact in new and creative ways.  The result is a brilliant and magical dance program that is colorful, graceful and exhilarating.

 

Inspired by the story, I went to Destiny Arts Center last fall and met their Artistic Director Sarah Crowell.  I wanted to stretch the expectations of Ragazzi's audiences so that they could see some unity in these different styles.  I also wanted to show that classical music does not have to be "stuffy."  As we talked about ways that we could bring my classical music group together with her dancers from the East Bay, we both began to be excited about the possibilities.  Sarah showed me a Youtube video of Yo Yo Ma playing a cello solo of Saint-Saen's "The Swan."  As the music builds, the great hip hop dancer L'il Buck slowly bends and moves to interpret this classic art-song.  Here was exactly what I was looking for, a blending of artistic styles to show how music can bring us together as it did the two dance troupes in the film "Street Dance."

 

The dancing on the street and the music in the concert hall come together in this concert.  We will be singing Bach and Schubert but also Native American and African dance songs along with Michael Jackson medleys.  The texts we sing are greetings and welcoming songs, from Yanaway to Sorida to The Lord Bless you.  Barriers will come down as we meld these styles into an artistic whole.  For a new concert experience, please join us and enjoy these talented young people! 

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Joyce Keil

Artistic Director

Ragazzi Boys Chorus

Singing, your key to health and happiness in Ragazzi!

Brian Eno is a multi-faceted artist best known for his collaborations with bands and punk and rock singers. He is an advocate for singing and reminds us that it is good for our health. He celebrates the joy of singing with a group and the satisfaction that comes when everything works together in a group.

 

Your key to health and happiness can be found right here in Ragazzi.

 

Singing: The Key To A Long Life

By Brian Eno

Weekend Edition Sunday, November 23, 2008 · I believe in singing. I believe in singing together.

A few years ago a friend and I realized that we both loved singing but didn't do much of it. So we started a weekly a capella group with just four members. After a year we started inviting other people to join. We didn't insist on musical experience — in fact some of our members had never sung before. Now the group has ballooned to around 15 or 20 people.

I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor. A recent long-term study conducted in Scandinavia sought to discover which activities related to a healthy and happy later life. Three stood out: camping, dancing and singing.

Well, there are physiological benefits, obviously: You use your lungs in a way that you probably don't for the rest of your day, breathing deeply and openly. And there are psychological benefits, too: Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And then there are what I would call "civilizational benefits." When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings — to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

Well here's what we do in an evening: We get some drinks, some snacks, some sheets of lyrics and a strict starting time. We warm up a bit first.

The critical thing turns out to be the choice of songs. The songs that seem to work best are those based around the basic chords of blues and rock and country music. You want songs that are word-rich, but also vowel-rich because it's on the long vowels sounds of a song such as "Bring It On Home To Me" ("You know I'll alwaaaaays be your slaaaaave"), that's where your harmonies really express themselves. And when you get a lot of people singing harmony on a long note like that, it's beautiful.

But singing isn't only about harmonizing pitch like that. It has two other dimensions. The first one is rhythm. It's thrilling when you get the rhythm of something right and you all do a complicated rhythm together: "Oh, when them cotton balls get a-rotten, you can't pick very much cotton." So when 16 or 20 people get that dead right together at a fast tempo that's very impressive. But the other thing that you have to harmonize besides pitch and rhythm is tone. To be able to hit exactly the same vowel sound at a number of different pitches seems unsurprising in concept, but is beautiful when it happens.

So I believe in singing to such an extent that if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing become a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.

Independently produced for Weekend Edition Sunday by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick. Special thanks to Davia Nelson of The Kitchen Sisters for recording this essay.

 

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Joyce Keil

Artistic Director

Ragazzi Boys Chorus