I finally saw the Chester Children's Chorus

Chester is fortunate to have John Alston shine his star on our city. What he can produce with 150 Chester kids without screaming, kicking, and hollering is a true work of art. And, what the children produce under his direction is a literal work of art.

This weekend, the Chester Children’s Chorus is staging their Summer Concert at the Lang Performing Arts Center on the idyllic Swarthmore College campus. The 90 minute concert features kids from 3rd to 12th grades performing classical, gospel, and original songs, along with an amazing nine song tribute to Stevie Wonder. 

My guess is that the Lang has about 400 seats and very few of them were empty for the Friday performance. The concert attracts Swarthmore locals, university folks, chorus member’s family and friends, and the curious, which results in an extremely diverse crowd of all ages. 

I found the concert enjoyable and entertaining. The performance flowed well from song to song, genre to genre. In a sense, there was nothing that overwhelmed me in the performance, yet, there was not a single disappointing moment either. 

It’s not hard to appreciate the hours of rehearsal that it takes to do a concert with so much musical complexity, especially with children. They pulled it off flawlessly.

HOWEVER, I may have had the worse seat in the house. I was surrounded by The Loud Family. Between the young kids talking through the entire concert and the adults with them behaving as though the concert was background music to their conversation, and the baby screaming and kicking me in the back of the chair, and the adults singing along - all out of tune - to Hallelujah and a couple Stevie songs, I finally snapped and had to get up and leave. I stood through half of the last set near the door. 

You can take some folks out the ‘hood, but you can’t take the ‘hood out of them. Lawd!