Children's choir celebrating 20 years

It's hard to believe, but the Salt Lake Children's Choir is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. Over the past two decades, the choir has become a mainstay on the local music scene, performing with such well-known artists as Frederica von Stade, Marvin Hamlisch and Pete Seeger and recording with groups such as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony.

But one of the choir's biggest triumphs happened last summer when it placed second at the Golden Gate International Children's Choral Competition in Oakland, Calif., where it competed against groups from around the world.

Now, the Salt Lake Children's Choir is busy preparing to commemorate its anniversary with a concert Saturday evening in Abravanel Hall. Founder and director Ralph Woodward promises that there will be a lot of audience favorites on the program and that there also will be a few surprises during the course of the evening.

"The program will be kind of typical of what we like to do at this time of year," Woodward told the Deseret News. "I like to begin with fairly classical fare, and we will be doing two or three art songs and maybe one or two selections by Schumann and also a couple of pieces of my own.

"Then we'll sing some folk songs from Wales, Ireland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Tyrol and the Ukraine. And we're going to end the concert with 'A Day in Spring,' which has become our signature piece."

"A Day in Spring" is also the title of the Salt Lake Children's Choir's newest CD. "Some of the pieces that we're doing on the concert are on this album," Woodward said, "and I'm counting on the CD being available at the concert."

The biggest surprise of the anniversary concert will be a performance by an alumni choir made up of former choristers. "So far, we're going to have over 90 in our alumni choir, and we're still getting responses from former members. I just hope we're going to have enough scores for everyone!"

Woodward is thrilled to get such an overwhelming response from these former members. "It's heartwarming for me to have so many come and sing in the alumni choir. We have someone coming here from California and someone else coming from New York. And some of these kids I haven't seen since they left the choir."

Additionally, two members of the alumni choir who have gone on to pursue a career in music will be featured as soloists at this concert. Both Nancy Treu Jepson and Erin Palmer got some of their earliest exposure to music as members of the Salt Lake Children's Choir.