Wichita children’s choir celebrates three decades of making music

The Wichita Community Children’s Choir is spending the season celebrating its 30th anniversary — although, like many arts organizations, it marvels at the past two years.

“With the concern of safety, there are some choirs that have shut down for now,” artistic director Karen Sims said. “You think of Broadway and others — and performing arts have taken a great hit. People have had to be very creative. I think we’ve realized how important music and the arts are to our well-being.”

The choir has had to make adjustments, she said, including moving performances to outdoor settings at Botanica and Naftzger Park. Rather than rehearse in its usual location at Friends University, Sims invited the singers to her farm, where she was perched atop a tractor bucket to lead the children who kept 6-plus feet of distance from each other.

“Probably the most important aspect of choral singing is how we become a community and forming a social connection,” Sims said. “We wanted to prioritize our singers’ health and safety as children and that meant the best option was to go outside.

“We really thought outside the box, but we were really committed,” Sims continued. “We thought, if we’re going to do this it has to be authentic, educational experiences and make it worth the kids’ while. That they look back and it’s a meaningful, unforgettable way we’ve touched their lives.”

At the farm rehearsals, the choir performed with the African Americans Renewing Interest in Spirituals Ensemble, or ARISE, for a concert that included gospel songs, civil rights anthems and slave-created music.

The concert was indicative of the eclectic repertoire the choir has performed over three decades, Sims added. Through the years the group has performed with Wichita Grand Opera, Wichita native Chris Mann, bluegrass groups, the African Children’s Choir, and in Benjamin Britten’s “Requiem” with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.

The Wichita Community Children’s Chorus began in 1992 by elementary music teachers Marilyn Killian and Barbara Bowers, said Ricki Emery, president of the board of directors and a retired music teacher. It started during what Emery called the “beginning of the children’s choir movement in Kansas,” with similar groups forming in Newton and Winfield in south-central Kansas.

Children from fourth through eighth grades were initially recommended by their music teachers for an audition with the choir. Through the years, the recommendations have not become necessary, but the young singers must still pass an audition. It is not limited to the Wichita Public Schools or the city limits, with one singer driven from northern Oklahoma for rehearsals and performances.

Emery said since the beginning the group had “the mindset that every child — every child — had the ability to sing and to sing … and there’s an intrinsic ability to sing artistically, that young children could experience music on a high level and to provide those experiences, and the impact that will have on their growth as humans.”

Before the pandemic, children’s choirs gathered for an annual concert called “ChorALL,” showcasing their best performances and combining for a mass choir for the finale.

“Those types of things just touch your soul,” said Sims, also a retired music teacher. “You don’t forget those.”

Although the group currently has 50, its pre-pandemic levels were about 80 in the main choir and more in a choir specifically for fourth- and fifth-graders.

The choir will join with SmorgasChorus, a Wichita men’s barbershop chorus, for a free concert next Saturday at Andover Central High School; and will celebrate its anniversary with an April 23 concert at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, Wichita. The anniversary concert will include a performance by Liz Lang, a choir alumnae who has become a successful opera and classical performer.

The choir includes two sisters whose father was a choir member, Sims said, and a girl whose aunt was in the original group.

Emery said part of the success of the choir is thanks to its adaptability and flexibility.

“The reason we’ve been able to survive, and I think a reason this choir is still relevant 30 years later, is due to leadership … and the ability to adapt to the times,” she said. “Any group that’s going to survive can’t remain stagnant. And through the years WCCC has proven that we have to adapt to different rehearsal techniques, different venues, different types of music that the kids sing, and make it relevant to the children and to the parents.”

Sims, the fourth leader of the chorus and who has directed the group for eight years, said that through the decades the group has been an emotional and creative outlet for children.

“We’re realizing more and more how young people need a place to share their voices, to be emotional, psychological, spiritual, social,” she said. “There is nothing better and the instrument is right there. Every kid has one.”

WICHITA COMMUNITY CHILDREN’S CHORUS

When: 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 19

Where: Andover Central High School, 603 E. Central

Tickets: Free admission

The choir’s 30th-anniversary concert will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 23, at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, 1958 N. Webb Road