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The KPAC Blog features classical music news, reviews, and analysis from South Texas and around the world.

Children's Chorus Celebrates 30 Years Of Song, And Big Changes

CCSA

There are some big changes happening at the Children’s Chorus of San Antonio. We'll get to that in a moment, but first, I talked to Artistic Director Marguerite McCormick about this Sunday’s event at Concordia Lutheran Church.

“Sunday’s performance is a big celebration. This is our 30th anniversary season and we have lots of wonderful choirs that are going to be singing in the concert as always," she said. "But we also have some wonderful alumni that are going to be in the audience and are going to come up and sing.”

When she says alumni, what she means are grownups that used to be kids and sang growing up.

"That’s right!" said McCormick. "And some of them have children in the chorus now. So we’ve got second generation singers, and that’s really something to celebrate.”

The thing is, she’s burying the lead here. There’s actually some very big news.

"All right, so rumor has it that someone’s retiring here. What’s the deal with that?" I asked.

“After 31 years I am retiring as artistic director," she said. "I need to pass this on to someone when the organization is growing and we have wonderful singers.”

The Children’s Chorus of San Antonio is looking for a new director, but in the interim they’ve found someone McCormick knows well.

"Dr. Doreen Rao, who’s going to serve as or interim artistic director. She is a mentor and a teacher of mine, but she’s also really the reason that there are so many children’s choirs in the United States at this time," said McCormick. "She was at the forefront of the movement. She’s helped lots of people, including me, get established with their organizations."

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii