The Cupertino Courier

Cover Story

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Jingle Bells: Practicing 'Jingle Bells' for their upcoming performance at Cupertino Union Church are members of the Crystal ChildrenÕs Choir (from left) Luanne Sze, Kevin Huang, Vivian Wang, Elinda Xiao, Tiffany Cherng and Stone Hao.

Perfect Harmony

Cupertino-based Crystal Children's Choir earns a world-class reputation

By Joanne Griffith Dominique

Whitney Huang loves to sing. Recently the 16-year-old and her mother, Diana Huang, went over Whitney's calendar and added up the hours she spends each week singing, "in addition to random humming," she said.

The total came to 12 hours a week. "Like wow! That's crazy," Whitney said. More than half those hours are spent singing with the Cupertino-based Crystal Children's Choir, a community choir for 6- to18-year-olds that boasts more than 1,000 members. The Sunnyvale resident has been with the group, for 10 years and has sung and traveled with the group all over the world. "I enjoy everything about the choir," she said.

Crystal Choir is one of just three children's choirs that has been invited to perform for the 7,000-member American Choral Directors Association national convention next March in Miami. ACDA is the largest choral organization in the world.

"This is a big achievement for us," said Jane Li, administrator for the choir.

The children are so good, "they bring you to tears," said Billie Bandermann, music director at Union Church of Cupertino. She also teaches three levels of singing at nearby De Anza College.

In 1994, when Cupertino resident Karl Chang started the group, it rehearsed at one location, Union Church on Stevens Creek Boulevard, where it rents space. Today the choir has grown so much it rehearses at four locations around the Bay Area. Cupertino is still home base for the group, with almost half the children at that location.

Bandermann has been at Union Church since 1990, so she was on hand when Crystal Choir began. "I saw them grow. They were pretty good when they started. They are world-class now. You could take them any place in the world."

And Chang has. The concert group has sung in the Beijing Concert Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Whitney has traveled with the choir to Europe, Asia, Australia and Newfoundland.

This weekend the community has a chance to hear this extraordinary group. The Crystal Children's Choir will perform three holiday concerts: 7 p.m. Dec. 2; and 7 and 8:15 p.m. Dec. 3. All concerts will be in the sanctuary of Union Church of Cupertino, 20900 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino. Tickets are $5. The choir's top group, the concert choir, will perform at 10 a.m. Dec. 10 as part of the Union Church worship service.

Crystal Choir is not a church choir or a church group. "We are a community choir," Chang said. The concerts and performances are a thank-you to the church for the welcome extended to the choir. "We share our music with the church," Li said.

When Chang was starting the choir in 1994 and looking for rehearsal space, some churches said no, Chang said. "But Cupertino Union said, 'Yes, come on in.' "

The church is glad it did. "Nothing is more glorious than singing," Bandermann said. "These kids have focus in their lives. The church is so proud they are there."

Karl Chang is a quiet, unassuming man. In 1981 he moved to California from Taiwan to take an engineering job with Hewlett-Packard. He has a master's degree in industrial engineering as well as an MBA.

The same year he moved to the United States, he started an adult Chinese choir at Stanford, a group he still conducts. Parents came to him in the early 1990s and asked if he'd do something for children. He realized California does not have much the arts in the public schools. His own two children were then in preschool and a second-grade.

He held auditions in 1994. He wanted a good children's choir, and he thought he might end up with a group of 30. Instead he began with 61, culled from the 80 who auditioned. Most of the children are Asian, "but that was not the intent," Chang said.

The choir began March 13, 1994. On Dec. 10, 1994, it gave its first performance, at the Sunnyvale Senior Center. In 1995 the choir traveled to Fresno to perform at Fresno State University. In 1996 the choir took its first trip abroad, visiting Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 1997 the children sang in Shanghai and Beijing. Trips continued every year, an important part of the choir experience. This December about 60 from the concert choir will travel to Italy and will sing at the Vatican.

Chang never wanted the choir to be a large group--"I wanted to be a quality group, not a quantity group--" but children kept coming. Friends brought friends to concerts. Teachers referred students.

For Whitney Huang it was her piano teacher who invited her and her mother to a concert 10 years ago.

"I was so impressed," Diana Huang said, "by the sound, the organizing. It was a very cohesive group." Whitney joined when she was 6.

"The amazing thing about this choir," Huang said, "is that it's a group of people--a team--that wanted to provide opportunity for children. Singing has changed my daughter's life. The more she sings, the more she learns. The environment provides opportunities for trips. She has formed her own a cappella group of five, all from the choir. They rehearse on their own time; they choose their own music. They learn through the choir all these organizing skills."

For Grace Siu, a Sunnyvale resident, it was her daughter's kindergarten teacher who referred her to Crystal Choir. Her daughter, now 7, is in her second year with the choir. "Through singing, Crystal hopes to nurture in each young singer the love of music," Siu said.

She marvels at the way the choir is organized. They have homework. They have a Crystal Choir tote bag. They have a choir passport. "You do an extra activity, like singing at a senior center, you get your passport stamped. With five stamps, you get a little toy," Siu said.

When children join the choir, they also get a Crystal Choir T-shirt and a water bottle. When they travel, they might also receive a backpack or a sweatshirt, Huang said. "It's a group-bonding type of environment."

Emily Mazzarino conducts the 6- to 8-year-olds in Cupertino. She has taught music in the Sunnyvale public schools. "Choir is my hobby," she said. "I love this age." At a recent rehearsal she taught a new song, "Ants." First Mazzarino clapped a rhythm. The children clapped it back. Then she said the words. She taught them to hear the similar sound in "fate" and "hibernate." Finally they sang the song.

"Singing in a choir," Mazzarino said, "is 50 percent singing with your voice and 50 percent listening with your ears."

Children in their first two years with the choir do not travel, but in the third year, they can go to Disneyland and to Southern California for performing, Chang said.

The choir has six levels with 28 different groups, with the concert choir at the top. This group sang at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in October as part of the Voices of America's Future concert, which Grace Cathedral started in 2001 following 9-11.

Chang said he has created the choir structure "as we go." He never expected to have the numbers he now does. A few years ago the group had grown to 300-350. "I tried to limit it. We didn't have enough facilities, staff, funding. In 1994, each child paid $50, a dollar a week, but that doesn't work [anymore]," Chang said.

In 1996 Crystal Choir was incorporated and formed a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. In 2006 each child paid $450 for the year. The fee may go up in January, Chang said.

Chang had goals for his group. First, he hoped that after 10 years, the choir might be invited to sing at the Western Divisional Convention of the ACDA. The invitation came--after only eight years. And in 2002 the choir sang at the convention in Honolulu and again in 2006 in Salt Lake City.

Second, he hoped that after 20 years, his choir would be invited to the ACDA national convention. To sing at this event, a group must have first sung at its area divisional convention. Then it is evaluated on the basis of three years of audio tapes. These are "blind" auditions with no names used. Choral directors evaluate the tapes. This invitation also came sooner than Chang imagined--after only 12 years. In March, Crystal Choir will sing in Miami at the national convention.

"It's a shock to be invited to the national convention," Chang said.

In 2004 Crystal Choir rented Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco to celebrate its 10th anniversary. It wasn't easy getting all 850 children on the stage, they filled the hall. At that time Chang decided to take the next two years off from his work and devote himself to Crystal Choir and his goal of taking them to the national convention.

"Teamwork made it happen," Chang, 51, said. He had considered waiting until he retired, but he decided, "Why not spend the time now? It's my passion, my mission, my vision."

And it shows. Everything the choir does "is fine, polished. Their sound is a pure, balanced sound," Bandermann said.

And the children learn "not only the music," Li said, "but harmony."