“The Dallas Street Choir is a group composed of the city’s homeless,” reports Wade Goodwyn on Wednesday (6/14) at National Public Radio. “25 of its most dedicated singers—including some with mental illness and addiction issues—have been picked to tour the East Coast…. Never before in its 126-year history has Carnegie Hall hosted a musical ensemble solely comprising performers who are homeless…. Tickets have been donated so hundreds of New York City’s homeless, from all five boroughs, can attend…. The sound the Street Choir will bring to the hallowed venue is, [choir director Jonathan] Palant freely admits, ‘scrappy…. But it’s unbridled, passionate.… You’re teaching folks who have a hard time staying awake because they spent the previous night on a heating grate outside.’ … The Street Choir will be joined at Carnegie Hall by … composer Jake Heggie, who has arranged music and will accompany the choir on piano. Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade will join the singers again, after she performed with them in Dallas two years ago.” Heggie says at the Dallas performance, he and fellow musicians “were in the back row listening to this group of people … and we were all weeping.”
Posted June 15, 2017
