Children’s choir makes stop in city
By Casey Gillis on Aug. 17, 2007
In the midst of its U.S. tour, the World Vision Korea Children’s Choir will make a special, unscheduled stop in Lynchburg next week.
Lynchburg College’s choral director, Jong Kim, worked with the choir this summer in Korea, and after hearing they’d be performing in Charlottesville, “I twisted the conductor’s arm” to get them to come here, he says.
“This is kind of out of their schedule,” he says. “They specially arranged it. … Trying to bring outstanding singers and choirs to Lynchburg (is) one of the ways we can bring our standards up.”
The 40 children in the choir — who will be performing in LC’s Snidow Chapel at 7 p.m. Monday — are selected through a highly competitive audition process.
“They’re not just a children’s choir,” Kim says. “They’re very professional. They’re known all around the world. You will see that it is something different.”
World Vision’s founder Bob Pierce first organized the choir in 1960 after he visited South Korea and encountered children who had been orphaned by the Korean War.
He put together a choir with some of them, and since then, the kids involved in it have performed more than 3,000 times in Korea and overseas, receiving many accolades along the way.
In 1978, the choir became the first Asian choir to win first prize in the BBC’s International Choral Competition. In 1988, they performed in the opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympic Games and were later selected to perform in European concert tours promoting the 2002 World Cup games.
Their shows are a combination of singing and dancing, and the concert tour theme this year is “A Voice for the Voiceless.” A portion of the proceeds from their shows will be donated to aid orphans, handicapped and street children in Mongolia (the Lynchburg performance is free and not part of the tour).
“It will be a very wonderful choral event,” says Kim, who compares the Korea Children’s Choir to the well-known Vienna Boys’ Choir. “The tone quality and blending, which are two of the most important aspects of choral music, are unbelievably good, and their sound is heavenly.”
If You’re Going
WHAT: World Vision Korea Children’s Choir
WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday
WHERE: Lynchburg College’s Snidow Chapel
ADMISSION: Free
INFO: (434) 544-8100
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