Keystone State Boychoir
June 2007
Founded in 2001, Keystone State Boychoir (KSB) has enjoyed unprecedented success for an ensemble so young. Boasting over 130 members, it has been called “the rising star” of the Philadelphia music scene.
KSB has collaborated with Philadelphia’s major music groups. In 2004, the choir appeared in two Philadelphia Orchestra concert productions — Carmina Burana and The Lord of the Rings Symphony. The Opera Company of Philadelphia, which named Keystone State Boychoir its official boychoir, featured KSB in its 2002 production of Carmen, and in La Bohème in November 2006. KSB’s performance in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia at Verizon Hall in May 2003 was hailed as “excellent” by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
In addition to singing in the Opera Company’s La Bohème, KSB’s busy 2006-07 season has included a concert with the Ocean City Pops, two all-KSB holiday concert performances and two KSB Spring Concert performances at the First Presbyterian Church of Germantown, and a concert with Singing City at First Baptist Church, plus appearances at Congregation Rodeph Shalom, the Rittenhouse Square Christmas Treelighting Ceremony, St. Francis Xavier Church, the Union League of Philadelphia, and Church of the Holy Trinity. KSB was featured at mid-January events honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., including services at New Covenant Church in Mt. Airy and Zion Baptist Church in North Philadelphia. KSB sang the national anthem at the Sixers game at Wachovia Center on February 7.
In July KSB embarks on its first tour to Australia, singing concerts on both coasts, hosted by the Australian Youth Choir. KSB’s Southeast Asia tour in 2006 included stops in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia. In Hanoi, the boys sang for the U.S. Ambassador and stayed with families of the Vietnamese Children’s Choir, and the tour concluded with the prestigious bi-annual conference of the International Society of Music Education in Kuala Lumpur. Previous tours took the choir to Japan (2005), western Canada and Alaska (2004), Brazil (2003), and South Africa (2002).
Keystone State Boychoir’s sister choir is Pennsylvania Girlchoir.
To schedule an audition for an interested boy,
call 215-849-1762 or visit
www.paboychoir.org