Artists

Now in its 22nd season, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, under the direction of founder and artistic director Dianne Berkun-Menaker, is one of the country’s leading youth choruses and the ensemble of choice for internationally renowned orchestras and artists. The New York Times has hailed it “a consistently bold organization that regularly commissions works from composers representing an unusually broad stylistic range.” The chorus studies and performs a vast repertoire of classical and contemporary music and has an active commissioning program called New Voices to develop works for young voices across a variety of genres. The composers it has commissioned to date include Nico Muhly, David Lang, Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, Paul Moravec, Julia Wolf, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Shara Worden, John King, and Colin Stetson.

BYC has appeared with acclaimed orchestras and conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Marin Alsop, James Levine, Robert Spano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Reinbert de Leeuw, as well as such celebrated recording artists as Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Lou Reed, Grizzly Bear, and John Legend. BYC won a Grammy Award for the live recording of the world premiere of John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls with the New York Philharmonic in 2005. Known for its polished performances, the chorus has appeared at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, with Kronos Quartet and Wally Cardona; BAM’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival, curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner; the Ecstatic Music Festival; and Park Avenue Armory’s Tune-In Festival. BYC has also garnered a strong reputation as an arts presenter with such major collaborative projects as Brooklyn Village, co-produced with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Roulette, in 2012, and Tell the Way, co-produced with St. Ann’s Warehouse and featuring composer Nico Muhly, in 2011.