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Vol. LXV, No. 38
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011
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Vol. LXV, No. 38
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011
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“I have recently been named Head of School at the American Boychoir School,” announced Lisa Eckstrom in a recent email. “I have gone from an all girls’ school to an all boys’ school; it is quite a switch!”
Although Stuart Country School, where Ms. Eckstrom had spent the last seven years, is not without music — assemblies there are routinely punctuated by girls breaking into joyful song — the American Boychoir School (ABS) was a different story. Founded in 1937 in Columbus, Ohio, the all-boys, fourth- through eighth-grade school has been located in Princeton since 1950. It is America’s most widely touring and frequently performing choral ensemble, and the nation’s only non-sectarian boychoir boarding school.
“It is such a wonderful, private gem in Princeton,” said Ms. Eckstrom in a subsequent interview and tour. “This building fills with music when school is in session. I agreed to say yes to this job as soon as I heard a rehearsal.”
In addition to being surrounded by music, Ms. Eckstrom has assumed the helm of ABS at a time of significant transition. Along with the French American School of Princeton and the Wilburforce School, ABS will be moving, during the coming months, into new quarters at the Princeton Center for Arts and Education (PACE), a.k.a. St. Joseph’s Seminary, at 75 Mapleton Road in Plainsboro.
Which is not to say that their current Lambert Drive location in the western section of Princeton is shabby. Built by Listerine fortune heir George Lambert and landscaped by the firm of Olmstead and Vaux, Albemarle, the school’s main building, boasts multiple fireplaces, beautifully crafted wood details, and classrooms with glass-paned doors that open to lush scenery. Indeed, Ms. Eckstrom reports, at one point the school’s driveway ended at the D&R Greenway nature preserve.
Looking ahead, though, Ms. Eckstrom is already imagining the sounds of the boys’ voices in St. Joseph’s “amazingly” beautiful and acoustically “perfect” chapel. People in Princeton can look forward to “the best Friday afternoons possible,” when, after it moves in, ABS begins to offer open rehearsals in the chapel.
At Lincoln Center
In the meantime, there are performances to prepare for, including one on September 17 with the New York Philharmonic, at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Alan Gilbert will conduct Sir William Walton’s score for the Laurence Olivier film of Henry V, and actor Christopher Plummer will narrate the concert, which will also feature the Manhattan School of Music Symphonic Chorus and Chamber Choir.
Music teacher Fernando Malvar-Ruiz was putting the sixth- through eighth-grade boys who comprise the Concert Choir through their paces for the performance in a rehearsal late last week. The focus at the moment was on “overtone singing,” in which, Mr. Malvar-Ruiz explained, you “sing a note and then move your tone up and down.” A New York Philharmonic concert may seem like a daunting prospect, but on this day the mood was relaxed. Boys can, and do, either stand or sit as they sing. Some use their hands; some cover an ear. There was lots of positive feedback as individual boys demonstrated overtone singing and correctly answered Mr. Malvar-Ruiz’s questions. He answered their questions as well, describing, for example, “what happens when you hiccup.” The boys were encouraged not to make overtone singing nasal (you will “sound like a cat who is dying”), and to “have fun” in the week before their next rehearsal.
A Certain Spark
In the “Barrel Room,” named for its curved ceiling, teacher Fred Meads was working with a younger, less formal chorus. Currently there are 51 boys at the school, two-thirds of whom are residents, one-third day students. Being accepted to the school is, not surprisingly, very competitive. At auditions, musical training is not necessarily the foremost criterion. The school’s recruiters “hear something, or see a certain spark,” explained Ms. Eckstrom. “They kind of know.” Another must-have for getting into ABS is willingness to be part of choir. “You would never want to take a kid who doesn’t want to be here,” she said. “Willingness to be in a choir shows willingness to be part of a community.” Music may mean different things to different children, Ms. Eckstrom added, saying that she has observed “some of the most playful clowns brimming with joy and goofiness” turn serious when they sang, and vice-versa. In either case, “they’re in heaven when they’re singing
“When I look at boys singing, I see that the light is ‘on’ in every single face. Music is movement, pattern recognition, joy, and comradeship,” and that combination, Ms. Eckstrom believes, makes for a particularly successful middle school experience. “Music is such a natural path for the kind of kinesthetic learning that ought to happen in every middle school.”
“Choral music offers boys in general a chance to practice ‘mental calisthenics’ (pattern recognition) with movement, something that is often missing from a middle school boy’s school day,” she noted. “I love that choral music offers boys a chance to learn how to be part of a community as well: they need to listen to one another to sing as a choir.”
Added to that is the fact that the boys participate in concerts around the world with orchestras like the New York Philharmonic or the London Symphony Orchestra, making for what Ms. Eckstrom describes as “a life-changing opportunity,” that “gives a boy a kind of confidence that few middle schoolers experience.”
“That confidence comes from real effort on the boy’s part: he knows that his hard work, his dedication, and his willingness to (literally) listen to others has made him successful. What more do we really want for our children?”
As for transitioning from an all-girls schools to an institution that is all-boys, Ms. Eckstrom said that it isn’t all that different, and that the merits of same-sex education still hold true. Students in same sex schools, she said, are more engaged in what they’re doing together than in worrying about how others may be perceiving them.