New kids’ choir looking for members

FAIRFIELD - Everybody Sings, a local community choir in Fairfield, will start a new chapter in its musical offerings, a children's choir called Everybody Sings Kids.

'Starting a children's choir here has long been a dream of mine, and I am thrilled to be finally beginning it,” said Carol Negro, the choir's director. 'We look forward to including the younger generation performing individually and occasionally jointly with the adult choir.”

Rehearsals begin Thursday, Oct. 24 at 4 p.m. at Morning Star Studios, 51 ½ S. Court St., in Fairfield. These rehearsals will take place every Thursday thereafter, except during holidays.

Plans for this chorus include Christmas caroling and holiday songs of many different cultures and religions, performing an original musical written for Everybody Sings Kids, and many other exciting musical adventures.

Negro has many years of experience conducting children's choirs in California's Bay Area. As founding director of the Piedmont Girls Choir, now internationally known, she has won awards and been invited to the Oregon Bach Festival, International Choral Kathaumixw Festival, Newport Music Festival, Hong Kong International Children's Choir Festival and has made several appearances in concert and TV in Taiwan and Taipei.

She has been on staff and conducted the world famous San Francisco Boys Chorus. At the San Francisco Community Music Center, she enjoyed composing and staging five original musicals, and performed at several football and baseball games including Super Bowl XIX between the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins.

'Offering more educational singing opportunities to our community's children has been at the top of my bucket list,” Negro said. 'Conducting this particular choir is inspired first of all by my love of music and conducting.”

Negro said she is motivated by the following:

' To provide another opportunity for the kids of the diverse community to gather together, learn, sing, share, and continue to accept each other;

' The belief that every child deserves the support and right to explore, be educated, and to be offered as many options to express their creative natures as possible;

' Faith in kids and their parents and educators. 'I know if I didn't have that support as a child, I would never have succeeded in my musical career,” she said.

' Most importantly, she believes participation is the essence of community. 'Singing is joyful and can be shared with everyone,” she said.

Negro began Everybody Sings in February 2016. The group holds two to three concerts a year, including several Sing-Along Messiahs. She said this year, Everybody Sings will not perform a Christmas concert, but instead will perform community service by singing Christmas carols to shut-ins, at nursing homes and at hospitals. Negro hopes to include the youngsters in the caroling, too.

Negro said her goal is to take the children's choir on tour this summer and sing in other towns.

'I'm really psyched and happy to do this,” Negro said. 'I had to get the adults started first, and now I'm ready to move on. I know the joy in a kid's eyes and how happy they can be.”

Everybody Sings Kids, just like Everybody Sings, is open to everyone. There are no auditions.

'Kids only get to sing in kids' voices for one period of their life,” she said, explaining that she wants to 'carpe diem,” or 'seize the day,” by making the most of the opportunity.