February 18, 2009 State of Education: Boston's Children's Chorus Play video

(Peter Howe, NECN) - At the Boston Children's Chorus, singers are learning how to make beautiful music, and you'll probably never imagine how much they're also learning about math and reading and diligent study habits.

Among them is Jillian Baker from Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, a 9th grader at Boston Latin School, the city's top public school, which students must pass a competitive examination to attend. Her group is practicing a piece by Venezuelan composer Alberto Grau called "Como Tu" that breaks in one passage into 16-part harmony, sopranos and altos each singing 8 different notes. Jillian has been singing with the Children's Chorus since it was founded six years ago to unite young people from Boston and the suburbs in making beautiful and challenging music, and she credits her chorus experience with substantially helping her get into and stay at Boston Latin.

"Choir has helped me a lot, especially in math, and helped me maintain my grades,'' Jillian says. "It helps me especially in math, because math is not one of my best subjects, but with singing and sight-reading, it teaches you how to solve the problems, and how to think ... It helps so much, like helping you think beyond the obvious ... [and] you don't meet motivated people like this all the time.''

Artistic experience like this is something far too few Boston students get. That was the finding of a major new Boston Foundation study, lamenting that in Jillian's age group, just one quarter

In the Boston school system, there may be no bigger evangelist for arts education than Superintendent Dr. Carol R. Johnson. "There's a growing body of evidence, particularly from the neuroscientists, that really demonstrates that the cortex and the [area of the] brain that really helps develop mathematical schools is very near the cortex of the brain that develops music.''

Howe: The Children's Chorus is beautiful and exciting to listen to, and think about everything from school that's being reinforced: math, like beats per measure and beats per minute; reading, often in a foreign language; paying close attention to the teacher; and, studying very hard.

Martha Watson is an arts specialist at Beethoven Elementary School in Boston. She was invited to speak at The Boston Foundation's "The Arts Advantage" report presentation. "When I see children learning music, whether they're doing vocal music or whether they're doing instrumental music, I am stunned by the complexity of the task we're asking them to do,'' Watson says. "It's mathematical, it's English language learning or whatever your language is. You're dividing sound over a beat -- that's mathematical. You're asking them to hear in their head before it comes out of their head or out of their instrument what it is supposed to sound like. And then you're asking them, on top of that, to evoke some emotional response in the listener. This is an extraordinarily complex piece of work. When you compare it to reading a book -- which is, of course, vital -- and doing your math, this is such higher order functioning for a child, any student.''

Anthony Trecek-King, artistic director of the Children's Chorus says, "It's absolutely paramount to set not only big expectations, but huge expectations ... A seven-year-old can absolutely can sit here for two hours and be just fine and learn advanced theoretical concepts.''

Trecek-King is trained as a musician, not an educator, but has come to see how many ways he can be a teacher in the fullest meaning of the word. "You can use music as a way to transport time and also distance,'' Trecek-King says. "We sing a piece from Syria, and all of a sudden, that opens up the door to a discussion on the Middle East. What more important cultural discussion could we be having?''

Christina Yee of Boston's South End is in fourth grade at Josiah Quincy School and in the junior choir of the Children's Chorus, which on this day is working on a Benjamin Britten composition that would be no easy piece for adult singers. Christina hopes to follow Jillian Baker and pass the exam to get in to Boston Latin. Christina says chorus helps make her a better student. "Every kid should get a chance to have education and music,'' Christina says, "because it really opens up what you have inside and lets you experience what good art is like. It's just really fun and exciting.''

(With videographer Mike Bellwin.)

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