700 youth singers from 10 faculties throughout Boston will come collectively to sing on June 10 at Strand Theatre in Dorchester
Boston, MA (Might 20, 2025) — Boston Kids’s Refrain (BCC) at present introduced particulars for an expanded Large Sing, a particular efficiency that includes about 700 youth singers from Dorchester, East Boston, Mattapan, Roxbury, and South Boston in grades 2 by means of 6on June 10 on the Strand Theatre in Dorchester. The live performance will convey collectively singers from 10 faculties throughout Boston neighborhoods to carry out with particular visitor artist Tamar Greene, who’s at the moment starring within the Broadway firm of Hamilton, for a morning of joyful singing, celebration, and neighborhood.
The colleges collaborating within the occasion are:
- Mildred Avenue Okay-8 Faculty, Mattapan
- Samuel W. Mason Pilot Elementary, Roxbury
- The Oliver Hazard Perry Faculty, South Boston
- Higginson Lewis Faculty, Roxbury
- The Mather Faculty, Dorchester
- Codman Academy, Dorchester
- Grew Elementary, Hyde Park
- Bradley Elementary Faculty, East Boston
- Ellison Parks, Mattapan
- Ellis Faculty, Roxbury
This yr’s live performance would be the largest Large Sing occasion since its inception in 2023, because of the Mayor’s Workplace of Arts and Tradition’s Neighborhood Activation Grant program established to fund community-focused arts, cultural, and artistic activations in public areas that foster pleasure, strengthen neighborhood wellbeing throughout town, and advance placemaking in Boston neighborhoods. This funding permits BCC to develop this system to six new faculties, bringing collectively a considerable variety of college students.
In a stirring tribute to the 1963 Kids’s Campaign and Boston’s pivotal 1974 busing resolution to desegregate public faculties, college students from throughout town will come collectively for a particular efficiency titled Higher Collectively! This system, which encompasses a six-piece reside band, will highlight songs of triumph, pleasure, and unity—drawing from a variety of musical traditions that replicate town’s various cultural heritage.
The 1974 busing resolution, a federal mandate to handle racial segregation in Boston’s faculties, marked a essential—and controversial—second within the metropolis’s civil rights historical past. Paired with the legacy of the Birmingham kids who marched for justice in 1963, the efficiency serves as a strong reminder of younger individuals’s enduring function in social change.
Led by BCC’s Conductor of In-Faculty Applications Robert McFletcher-Jones, this yr’s Large Sing is the end result of a collection of workshops in any respect BCC-affiliated faculties all through the 2024-25 faculty yr. College students collaborating in this system will meet weekly to rehearse for 4 weeks, starting in Might. The live performance would be the first time 700students carry out all collectively as a part of a BCC program.
“Sixty-two years in the past, 1,000 kids modified the course of the civil rights motion. On June tenth, a military of vocal activists will present up and let their voices be heard!” stated McFletcher-Jones. “They’re the change we want, and it’s an honor to see these younger leaders throughout Boston come collectively to harness the facility of music to encourage and enact change.”
BCC reaches lots of of scholars yearly throughout 10 Boston and Chelsea Public Colleges, offering year-long, in-school choral music packages that foster musical artistry and cultural consciousness, empowering youth to sing with objective and delight. Every week, college students have interaction in actions like bodily and vocal warm-ups, aural coaching, music literacy, sight studying, physique mapping, and culturally related repertoire throughout genres like Gospel, Neo-Soul, Musical Theatre, Up to date, and Sacred Choral music, constructing an age-appropriate understanding of their vocal instrument. Colleges can select year-long, six-month, or short-term packages tailor-made to their wants.
“The power and spirit these youngsters convey—singing songs rooted of their cultural traditions and social justice—actually showcase the vibrancy of our communities,” McFletcher-Jones added. “I can’t wait to see everybody come collectively for a morning stuffed with music, pleasure, and connection.”
“We’re delighted to have our college students on the Perry 2nd – 4th graders take part within the Large Sing this yr,” stated The Oliver Hazard Perry Principal Mr. Andrew Rollins. “Boston Kids’s Refrain has been a real distinction maker in our faculty neighborhood, bringing our kids collectively by means of music and offering an outlet for his or her creativity and dynamism to shine by means of. Not solely do they develop as singers, however they develop as individuals by means of their work with BCC!”
“The Mason is extremely grateful for our partnership with BCC,” stated the Samuel W. Mason Pilot Elementary Principal Ben Rockoff, “Robert and his group are wonderful!!! All year long, students have had highly effective music instruction that has fostered a love of the humanities, introduced pleasure to our neighborhood, and helped spotlight and strengthen our college students’ abilities.”
BCC’s Large Sing live performance will happen at 12:00 PM on June 10 at Strand Theatre in Dorchester. Tickets are free, open to the general public on a first-come first-served foundation and will be reserved right here.
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About Boston Kids’s Refrain
Boston Kids’s Refrain (BCC) was based in 2003 by Hubie Jones, a civic chief who has labored for six a long time to handle the social issues going through Boston’s underserved kids and communities. Named Boston’s “Ambassadors of Concord” by The Boston Globe, BCC harnesses the facility of music to attach Boston’s various communities, domesticate empathy, and encourage social inquiry. BCC choir packages embrace 10 choirs with singers from 110 completely different zip codes in and round Boston. BCC presents over 50 performances per season in a variety of private and non-private occasions. They’ve carried out in venues from Boston Symphony Corridor, and Royal Albert Corridor in London, to Sydney Opera Home, and the White Home.
BCC is supported partly by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state company, and partly by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council, an area company which is funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, administered by the Mayor’s Workplace of Arts and Tradition.
About Tamar Greene
Tamar Greene is at the moment starring within the Broadway firm of Hamilton taking part in the function of George Washington. Previous to turning into Broadway’s longest-running George Washington, Tamar performed the identical function within the Hamilton Chicago firm by means of the top of its run. Different favourite theatrical credit embrace the Broadway Nationwide Excursions of Love By no means Dies (the sequel to Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera), The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Ragtime (the place he obtained a Theater Circle Award for Excellent Performer in a Musical for the function of Coalhouse Walker Jr.),and Broadway’s celebration of Harlem’s Golden Age, After Midnight. Tamar was additionally seen because the Crab Man on the Spoleto Pageant’s manufacturing of Porgy and Bess and as a featured singer within the PBS broadcast of Present Boat at Lincoln Heart.
Tamar carried out as a featured soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. He was not too long ago seen in Sondheim on Sondheim with the Kansas Metropolis Lyric Opera, because the soloist for the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra and in a particular orchestral efficiency airing on Comedy Central for the twenty fifth Anniversary of South Park. Later this season, he will probably be featured with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and the Kansas Metropolis Symphony Pops Collection.
As a voice over and business actor, Tamar has appeared on Audible, WEtv, Netflix Jr Jams, and will be heard on all streaming platforms along with his single, Hovering.
Tamar holds a Grasp of Music from the Eastman Faculty of Music, and two bachelor levels from SUNY Oswego; a B.A. in Music with a spotlight in Vocal and Piano Efficiency and a B.A. in Laptop Info Techniques from SUNY Oswego. Of all of those accomplishments, Tamar is proudest to play the function of husband and new father alongside his spouse to their 1 yr previous son. @Tamar.Greene. www.TamarGreene.com
