Michigan State University Children’s Choir
Nabs Two Grammy Awards

Stevie Wonder, Emmylou Harris, and the MSU Children’s Choir finally have something in common. They all won Grammy Awards this year.

The MSU Children’s Choir was a joint winner of two Grammy Awards: Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance for a CD entitled Songs of Innocence and of Experience, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and University of Michigan Professor William Bolcom.

Pictured with Grammy Awards are some members of the MSU Children’s Choir with director Mary Alice Stollak.

The 40-member children’s choir was among more than 400 musicians who performed the song cycle at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Mich. The young singers, fourth through 10th graders, share the award with their director, Mary Alice Stollak, composer Bolcom, performance
conductor Leonard Slatkin, as well as other conductors from the University of Michigan.

“I am so proud that our children were

asked to be part of a work of this

magnitude,” said Stollak, the choir’s founding director.

The Children’s Choir was invited to be a part of the enormous production along with nationally known soloists and choirs. Stollak worked with the youngsters rehearsing the music for two months before handing them over to conductor Slatkin for the 2004 performance, which was in collaboration with the University of Michigan School of Music and University Musical Society. Slatkin is the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra.

“It was a great educational and musical experience for the children to work with Leonard Slatkin and perform the music of William Bolcom along with such an impressive collective of fine musicians,” Stollak said.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is based on the poetry of William Blake. The recording, which was nominated for four Grammy Awards in all, was also awarded the Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

When the Community Music School opened its doors in 1993 as an outreach program of the MSU School of Music, a children’s choir was one of its most important priorities, said John Martin, former director of the Community Music School.

“James Forger, director of the School of Music, told me ‘you need to talk to Mary Alice Stollak,’” Martin said. “The three of us had lunch, and the rest is history.”

The MSU Children’s Choir also premiered the Holocaust piece, “Voices of a Vanished World,” last year. This major choral work by Marjan Helms, commissioned by the MSU Children’s Choir, was a new composition for treble voices and chamber ensemble. It explores the emotional and spiritual implications of the Holocaust, particularly as witnessed through the eyes of children.

As a counterpoint to the musical narrative, the work incorporates a large-scale multimedia presentation of archival photographic images representing European Jewish culture before and during the Holocaust.

“Mary Alice’s passion and brilliance for working with young singers is renowned and is continuously demonstrated by the beautiful singing and sophisticated musicianship of her young choirs,” said Martin. “For the last 14 years she has worked tirelessly for the children in the choirs, and I could not be more thrilled for her and the kids.”