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The Boys' Choir of Tallahassee |
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Southerners: Making a difference Southern Living, Nov 2000 by Roberts, Carolanne Griffith Founder-director Earle Lee lifts his baton, and the 98 members of the Boys Choir of Tallahassee rock you to the heart from the very first chord. The hushes, the swells, the polished syllables of emotion (all in Latin, mind you, during this opening number) sweep away the stories you've heard beforehand. These stories mention facts such as nobody auditions-everybody gets in; kids with a past (drugs, gangs, low grades) get a future (college, support, direction); and boys often come because their mamas make them-and stay because they want to. Joining means travel, from the Bahamas to Italy. And you learn this choir is sponsored by Florida State University's School of Social Work, not its School of Music. The stories are true. But this minute, all you hear is blended sound, all you see are ramrod-straight, purely focused boys singing like anointed angels. "If people don't respond to this choir, take their pulse," says Dr. Dianne Montgomery, dean of the School of Social Work at FSU. Dianne, along with Dr. Jerry O'Connor, wrote the early grant to launch the choir in 1995. The goal: to give kids focus and get them off the streets. "They have no problem telling you what would have happened without the choir," says Earle, speaking as the boys attend the two-hour study hall that precedes rehearsal one winter evening. "We've literally saved lives-and they have no problems telling you about it." (See "One Boy's Story" on page 98.) When you peek into the study hall, boys sheepishly hold up papers boasting good grades, then beam proudly when you make a fuss. The group claps enthusiastically when Earle announces improved grades before rehearsals. The roster, listed in every performance program, carries an asterisk by the names of the many honor roll singers. It's an unwritten rule too-when you finish your homework, you help someone else learn. "The only way they can't make it is if they don't want to follow the rules," says Earle, whom choir moms approvingly say has an "old soul" for traditional discipline. IN"We tell the boys, `We're offering you a future.' " These, he points out, are kids who thought that pro sports was their ticket out. "We've got the kids running around with a ball in their hands. That was their excuse not to study." Earle, who is a native of Columbia, South Carolina, saw the magic of music when he formed a choir with juvenile justice inmates back home. "We did one little performance with five kids-in for murder, assault and battery, petty larcenyand the next thing I knew, it was 75 kids a week later." The FSU program, designed to stem crime before it starts, returned Earle to the campus where he earned his undergraduate degree in social work years earlier. Earle's boys travel easily, winning awards as they go and singing in the oddest of places. "We were in the Library of Congress, and we got to the top floor with the big dome, and they started singing," recalls Akiba Aliyy, a choir mother. "Everybody just stopped. Wherever we go, people stop." They also applaud-in unusual places. "We did the music for a mass at St. Peter's Basilica, a major mass with communion," recalls Earle. "In the Catholic church, they were in the aisles clapping." He surveys the choir, pointing out members who now attend college. "You can go back and look at the tapes of when they were small, and now they're men," Earle says quietly. "They're good guys. Good. They have compassion for people, they're going somewhere-and to sit back and say I had a hand in it..." His voice trails off, but his smile says it all. |
