Biography
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Artistic Director Emily Crocker founded the Milwaukee Children's Choir (MCC) in 1994. She envisioned a choir that would serve Milwaukee youth through quality music education and please Milwaukee audiences through artistic excellence. MCC's mission - to provide exceptional choral music instruction and performance opportunities that foster creativity, personal expression and social growth - has taken MCC from a group of 35 musical novices simply wanting to sing to a musical ensemble comprised of more than 350 singers from the six-county area. MCC members come from family farms and dense urban areas and everything in between, and they represent more than 150 schools.  MCC has five divisions: Prelude Choir (beginning choir grades 1-3); Concert Choir (training choir grades 4-8); Cantorei (senior training choir grades 4-8); Chamber Cantorei (professional quality treble grades 6-12); and Milwaukee Youth Chorale (experienced mixed choir grades 9-12).

The Milwaukee Children's Choir is Southeastern Wisconsin's premiere children's choir. Its commitment to excellence leads to strong performance demand. During the 07-08 Season MCC had more than 50 performances, most of them collaborations with other performing arts organizations.

MCC's senior choirs perform regularly with the area's finest musical ensembles. It is the children's choir of choice for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and has performed a variety of repertoire with the MSO, ranging from the MSO’s Holiday Pops concerts to Britten’s War Requiem. During the 08-09 season, MCC will be featured with the MSO in both Orff’s Carmina Burana and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony.

In September 2008 the Milwaukee Children’s Choir will perform for the first time with the Milwaukee Skylight, providing the children’s choir for Skylight’s La Boheme.  Each November MCC is featured with Milwaukee's internationally proclaimed Present Music. Other recent guest appearances include Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (National Tour performances at Uihlein Hall), The Nutcracker and Midsummer Night’s Dream (with Milwaukee Ballet), Festival City Symphony's Holiday Pajama Jamboree, and Mequon's Gathering on the Green (Main Stage Guest Artist).

The Milwaukee Children's Choir also presents several concerts of its own each year. Each concert has a theme carried out with musical selections guaranteed not only to educate and inspire audiences but also to motivate and develop the young musicians in the choir. Repertoire is challenging, diverse, rich and rewarding. It is drawn from the classical masters (Bach, Mozart, Schubert), from more contemporary choral masters (Rutter, Hogan, Parker, Crocker), and from diverse cultures and a wide variety of musical styles including classical, popular, folk, and patriotic music.

The Milwaukee Children's Choir records on a regular basis. It is featured in Macmillan McGraw-Hill's Spotlight on Music school series, performing over 100 songs from around the world, including over 40 non-English songs. The choir also tours regularly, most recently to the Toronto International Choral Festival (Youth Chorale 2007) and the Rhapsody Prague Children’s Music Festival (Cantorei and Chamber Cantorei 2007).

The Milwaukee Children's Choir has demonstrated a strong commitment to urban at-risk youth and diversity. It has choir sites throughout the Milwaukee Metropolitan area, including underserved urban areas. It has a liberal tuition aid policy. MCC's diversity adds richness to its programming, enhances its educational value, and has led Wisconsin's arts community to recognize MCC as an institution leading the way to diversification.

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