{"id":1287,"date":"2013-02-24T14:05:22","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T19:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2013\/02\/24\/a-pitch-perfect-performance\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T20:12:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T01:12:00","slug":"a-pitch-perfect-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/a-pitch-perfect-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"A pitch-perfect performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jim Stewart<\/p>\n

For Mary Huff \u201999 and the New York City Children\u2019s Chorus, the week began with an opportunity to sing with a musical icon on NBC\u2019s \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d<\/p>\n

It became a time to help the nation heal from the horror of the shootings in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 children and adults dead.<\/p>\n

Huff, the chorus\u2019 co-founder and artistic director, received a call from SNL on Monday, December 10, inviting the choir to provide backup for Paul McCartney and his song \u201cWonderful Christmastime\u201d on the December 15 Christmas show. After taking care of assorted bureaucratic requirements, such as performance permits for the children, the select choir, ranging from fourth-graders to high-schoolers, was ready to rock and roll with the Beatles legend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe children were excited about being on Saturday Night Live,\u201d Huff says. \u201cTheir parents were excited that they were singing with Paul McCartney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a 45-minute rehearsal on Thursday \u2014 when McCartney dubbed Huff \u201cChoir Bosslady\u201d \u2014 everything seemed set for Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Until Friday, when the unthinkable happened in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Saturday morning, Huff awoke to a slew of messages from SNL staff. Could the choir sing something that night to honor the victims? What\u2019s possible? Perhaps \u201cSilent Night?\u201d Oh, and could they open the show?<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Christmas concert was scheduled the next [Sunday] afternoon, so we had rehearsed the hymn,\u201d says Huff. And having worked with many of the children for years and prepared them for performances at Carnegie Hall and other major venues, she was confident they could handle the moment.<\/p>\n

So at 11:30 p.m. December 15, \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d opened not with a crazy skit, but with the New York City Children\u2019s Chorus\u2019 poignant rendition of \u201cSilent Night.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

A minute and 35 seconds later, the carol ended and the picture faded to black \u2014 only to return seconds later on the choir, which then had the honor of shouting the show\u2019s trademark opening line, \u201cLive from New York! It\u2019s Saturday Night!\u201d<\/p>\n

They returned at the close of the program to sing with McCartney. \u201cHe was lovely, to me and the children,\u201d says Huff. \u201cHe\u2019s a trained choral musician, and he knows his choral music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics praised the chorus and the show for the simple, moving way they acknowledged the Newtown tragedy. Huff says she received appreciative comments from around the country, thanking the choir for its touching performance \u2014 which it reprised on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d program the following Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Huff has a long history of working with young people. Holder of a master\u2019s degree from Yale University, she was director of the children\u2019s and high school choirs at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church in New York from 2004-12. She is now associate director of music at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, where her husband Andrew Henderson is music director and organist.<\/p>\n

They launched the New York City Children\u2019s Chorus last fall, attracting many of the children Huff had worked with at both churches. \u201cThere was no community-based children\u2019s chorus in New York steeped in the Western classical music tradition,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are fantastic children\u2019s choirs that have different missions, but nothing like this. Even Greenville has its Chicora Voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interest in the program, which supports seven choirs for children ages 4-18, has jumped since the national television appearances. Huff sees it as part of the ministry of the church and says, \u201cWe\u2019ve created the kind of choir we wish we could have had as children.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the kind that brings solace to a nation in mourning.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngel,\u201d a CD of anthems recorded by the Saint Ignatius Children\u2019s Choir under Mary Huff\u2019s direction, is available from MSR Classics, www.msrcd.com\/catalog\/cd\/MS1399<\/a><\/span>. Photo provided by Mary Huff.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article from the Winter 2013 issue of<\/em> Furman magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jim Stewart For Mary Huff \u201999 and the New York City Children\u2019s Chorus, the week began with an opportunity to sing with a musical icon on NBC\u2019s \u201cSaturday Night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":1288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}