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5
I
t was hard at the beginning. No one likes to be taunted.
And boys certainly do not like to be told that they have
joined a “girl’s activity”. A choir is for girls. Boys should be
playing football.
But Antoine Khati, 12, loved to sing. An avid piano player,
he is passionate about music. Despite the taunting, he signed up
for the newly formed Boys Choir at the Middle School.
“I feel bad when they make fun of me,” said Antoine. “But I
won’t quit the boys choir. I am proud of singing with them.”
Antoine was one of five IC students chosen to perform last
October at the Association for Music in International Schools
(AMIS) annual Middle School Honor Boys’ Choir Festival in
Belgium.
No one could be more pleased than Lydia Sabra, their
conductor and music teacher.
It was during one of her music classes in 2003 as she was
teaching her students that a boy suddenly began to sing with a
“beautiful voice,” recalled Sabra. It was then that it hit her: “I’m
going to start a boys’ choir. This boy inspired me.”
Sabra knew there were other boys’ voices out there just
waiting to be discovered.
She was right and she spotted them in many of her classes.
Still, she knew she couldn’t recruit them with open auditions.
“I had to approach them one by one and sell them the idea,”
recalled Sabra. “I made them understand that it’s a cultural
activity. Most of them liked the idea.”
Still, many of her recruits were taunted.
“It’s not really in the culture here,” said Sabra. “The idea of
boys singing in a choir is a new one. So they made fun of them
and imitated them saying that they sounded like girls.”
And so Sabra threw herself in ways to sensitize her students
to the world of boys’ choirs. She brought to her classes DVDs
and music of boys choir. Vienna Choir Boys soon became a
household – or rather a ‘classhold’- name.
But at the end of the day, she counted on parents support. She
knew that it was up to them to either encourage or discourage
their children.
“My parents like it that I’m in the boys choir,” said Nessim
Stevenson, 14. “And I don’t mind going to rehearsals on
Saturday mornings. It’s worth it.”
On her part, Antoine Khati’s mother, Danielle, fully
supported the choir. “It disturbs me that other children laugh
at Tony because he is in the choir,” she said. “But I keep telling
him to ignore the taunting and keep singing.”
Today, the choir boasts 15 to 20 members.
The boys are also part of the Youth Choir (mixture of boys
and girls) but “I like the boys’ choir more because there’s more
one on one time with the teacher,” said Petro Hajj, 13.
In 2004, the choir gave their first concert. It was a hit. Since
then the choir gave four on-campus performances and three
performances at AMIS (Association of Music in International
Schools) Festivals in Germany, Vienna, and Belgium where the
IC choir boys joined 85 to 100 boys on stage.
Do the boys still get taunted? Yes, sometimes. But they don’t care.
“To be in the boys choir requires a very strong personality
and confidence,” said Sabra. Those that stay in the choir believe
in what they are doing. They have a good self image. I really
admire their dedication and commitment.”
Proud to be in the Boys’ Choir
IC Features