Music at Grace offers a special presentation of the renowned Newark Boys Chorus (Newark, NJ).

The Newark Boys Chorus was founded in 1966 as the New Jersey Symphony Boys Choir. Three years later, the Newark Boys Chorus School was established to create an integrated academic and music program unique to the city of Newark, New Jersey. The school is fully accredited by the Middle State Association of Colleges and Schools and is responsible for the academic and musical education of young urban men from the greater Newark area. The school’s mission is to inspire in the students a love for learning, a quest for excellence, and a compassion for humanity.

Known as Newark’s “Musical Ambassadors,” the Chorus has been heard throughout the world with a diversified repertoire that includes traditional classical music, spirituals, folk music, and jazz. In recent years the boys have toured Australia, South Africa, the Caribbean, Finland, Latvia, Russia, England, Wales, Spain, Portugal, and Canada. Recognized for their excellence in performance, they have been invited to sing at divisional (2004) and national (2005) conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). With an average of fifty concerts per year, the Newark Boys Chorus has performed in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (last appeared January 2017), Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

The Chorus has appeared on Good Morning America (WABC), recorded a BBC Christmas Special featuring soloists Renee Fleming and Leslie Garrett, and most recently as the National Anthem performer for the Thanksgiving Day game at MetLife Stadium (NBC), and on Don’t Sleep! Hosted by TJ Holmes (BET). The young men have performed the Penderecki ‘St. Luke Passion’ with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia; and participated in the Bard Music Festival’s production of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, -the Symphony of a Thousand, under the baton of Leon Botstein. In 2016 the Chorus was selected, for a third consecutive year, as New Jersey’s favorite choral group by JerseyArts.com.

Few Chorus School graduates become professional musicians, but the training and experience they receive demand discipline and poise while providing the self-esteem that these young men carry with them through life. They leave the Newark Boys Chorus School as young men prepared for and looking forward to a productive and happy future.