All-American Boys Chorus
The All-American Boys Chorus is based in Santa Ana, California and by Executive Director Tony Manrique and Artistic Director Wesley Martin. The Chorus includes over 100 boys ages 8 – 15 drawn from throughout Southern California. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wesley Martin, the Chorus provides boys with comprehensive musical training along with performance and touring opportunities. The All-American Boys Chorus has performed for live audiences totaling over one million people. They have performed with celebrities including Josh Groban, John Williams, Bob Hope, Steve Allen, and Victor Borge.
Vocal Arts - There are three levels in the Chorus. Students enter the Audition Division at the age of 8, 9 or 10 years where they focus on completing a series of musical “tasks” in two-week intervals and are mentored by a veteran chorister. After successfully learning and completing their musical tasks, students advance to the Training Division where they learn the Chorus’s basic repertoire, again mentored by a veteran chorister. Students in the Training Division also attend classes with a professional voice coach. Once a chorister learns the repertoire, he advances to the Concert Chorus.
Music Reading - The Chorus's Music Reading Program incorporates a professional staff teaching sight-reading, writing and comprehension of the language of music. Classes take place Saturdays from September to June. Level 1 introduces students to basic rhythms and sol-fege. In Level 2 more complex rhythms and sol-fege are taught and choristers are introduced to sight-reading. In Level 3 students progress to reading notes in the treble clef and gain further practice with sight-singing. In Level 4 students learn key signatures, bass clef notes, dynamic tempo markings and gain further proficiency with sight-singing.
Concert Performances - The Chorus performs more than 30 concerts per year in Southern California. There have been 44 concert tours in North America, including 31 to British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, and 8 overseas tours that included concerts in Russia, Romania, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany; the eight largest cities of Japan; and in 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2010 in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, China and Australia.
Entertainment and Recording Projects - The chorus has filmed and recorded commercials for Toshiba Laptops, KFC, Pacific Life, Mazda, Cartoon Network.
Discography
- A Little Christmas Magic (1985)
- On the Sunny Side of the Street (1988)
- The Best Gift of All (1992)
- By Request (1996)
- On Tour! (2003)
- California Dreamin' (2016)