“I Think I’m Starting To Get Famous!”

It’s official…… we have a member of the Phoenix Boys Choir.  Daimon’s choir teacher at school asked us to take him for an audition and so it began.  He announced that he made it to his school choir teacher. She told him she was going to post it in the school paper.  Later, Ben was putting Daimon to bed and Daimon’s remark was “Dad, I think I’m starting to get famous.”  Life through the eyes of a 10 year old! 

A little about the prestigious “Phoenix Boys Choir”:

Mission: The Phoenix Boys Choir, through educating boys in the art of singing and performing the finest music in the boy choir tradition, develops character, discipline, leadership, global awareness, and a strong commitment to excellence, thereby contributing to the greater Phoenix musical life and enhancing Arizona's cultural reputation nationally and internationally.

Since 1948, the Phoenix Boys Choir has provided top quality music education for boys ages 7-14 and lively entertainment for audiences around the world previously under the direction of Dr. Harvey K. Smith, who led the choir for forty years. The choir has been under the baton of Georg Stangelberger since 1999. Each season, 40 to 50 singers from the 170 member Phoenix Boys Choir are selected for membership in the organization's elite Tour Choir. Ranging from 10 to 14 years of age, these singers are lauded internationally as a result of their intensive Arizona-based training program.

Concert tours throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico, China, and Japan have brought the choir both audience and critical acclaim as one of the globe's outstanding boy choirs. The Phoenix Boys Choir has performed for four United States Presidents and with name entertainers such as Doc Severinsen, Stevie Wonder, and Keith Lockhart conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra. In 2001, they were named "Cultural Ambassadors" to the European Union and in December of 2002 were named an Honorary Phoenix Point of Pride by the Honorable Skip Rimza, Mayor of Phoenix.

In February 2000, the Choir won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance for its recording of Penderecki's Credo with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Helmuth Rilling. Credo is one of eight compact discs featuring the Choir, the most recent being Joy To The World.

In February 2003, the Tour Choir performed for the American Choral Directors Association Convention in New York City at Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center and Riverside Church.

In July 2007, the Phoenix Boys Choir won first place in the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival at the world-renowned Musikverein in Vienna, a competition created to provide a unique platform for the world's most talented youth choirs, bands and orchestras.

http://www.boyschoir.org