South Shore Children’s Chorus with Kirsten Oberoi
This Chorus founder built her chorus from nothing into a powerhouse in just six years with a pandemic in between by thinking differently. Watch the video to find out how.
The South Shore Children’s Chorus was founded in January of 2016 by colleagues Kirsten (Shetler) Oberoi and Carey Shunskis. The mission of the South Shore Children’s Chorus is to provide quality musical education and vocal training to students living in the South Shore communities of Quincy, Massachusetts
A native of Quincy, MA, Kirsten Oberoi is a passionate music educator, heavily involved in the music community of the South Shore.
“It’s about how you measure success. You know, do I have a sound that you would hear in an English chapel choir? No, I don’t. That’s not what my group sounds like. But they sound relevant, they sound natural, they sound excited. They love what they’re doing. And they’re getting better and growing in community and in musicianship.
For me, that’s inclusive. For me, that’s growing our art. The individual is the priority, music is the vessel, excellence is the byproduct.”
What inspired you to co-found the choir?
I'm from Quincy, Massachusetts, so I am from the city that I founded my children's chorus in. It's where I grew up. I went to college in San Diego, California, and in San Diego, I had some really, really great experiences and I did my degree in music composition. I loved the chorus the whole time. I had a very influential professor, Dr. Keith Pedersen, and he changed how I looked at leadership.
When I came back to Quincy, I got a job in the city with a children's chorus. I realized very quickly how imperative philosophy is to success. I decided to create the South Shore Children’s Chorus. We built and now the program has four different locations in the South Shore region of Massachusetts and serves approximately 150 students per year.
How did you get your choir off the ground?
We decided to create a “pilot program”. We went from January to May. We decided to charge tuition but if students couldn’t pay, they could still be involved. We knew we had to get this many kids who were paying to make this much money, any money we make over that we can split and use as our salaries. We didn't make very much more than what we needed, but it got the ball rolling.
What was the first thing you learned as a co-founder of a new choir?
Talk to someone in legal if you can! Because if you're going to have a bunch of kids meeting together, you have to have liability insurance. You have to cover your bases and have media release waivers, and liability waivers because you are basically in charge of their care. So there is some stuff there that you want to make sure you have.
But the nice thing about choir is really all you need is people.
You have recently hit an important milestone.
I am now officially a salaried Artistic Director of the organization I made up out of my head, and that is a really, really cool feeling. But I still teach some private lessons, and I'm still finishing up at the restaurant. I actually really enjoy it. You just get to be with people and you get to do something that pulls you away from music just a little bit, which I highly recommend.
From those humble beginnings six years ago, what does the choir look like now?
This fall we're expecting about 150 singers, give or take. That's where I think we're going to be. We are currently up about 40% in the registry so that's really good. And we haven't even started our rehearsals yet! Our rehearsals start on September 30th and we already have over 100 singers with us registered already. So we're rocking and rolling!
I conduct the high school group and I have seven conductors who work with me and they are probably some of the most fabulous people I've ever met in my entire life. They are honest and true and they have the utmost integrity and love this mission very much. So they're just amazing.
The organizational culture is important to you. Do you see it reflected in the choir?
They help me to create it, to refine it, and they hold me to it when things get hard - because things can get hard sometimes. They're always there to challenge me. If we as artists aren't challenged, we're not getting better and we're not making the biggest impact that we possibly can. So I'm very grateful to have that artistic staff.
I've gone from being a manager of sales and a manager of tasks to a manager of people. That's been a really interesting shift. Some of that comes with self-reflection and recognition that my role is shifting. It is challenging in its own way.
Do you find yourself still getting dragged into the weeds every once in a while? And the temptation to micromanage people?
Yes, it's definitely a temptation! It's actually easier for me with the artistic stuff to not micromanage. But additionally, I've also known all of my conductors for a while so I trust them.
The administrative stuff is harder for me to let go of because I have sort of crafted this culture and letting go of the control freak in me is more of a challenge. Until this year, I could have named every kid on every roster.
Your choir is based out of Quincy, a community on the South Shore of Massachusetts. How does it affect how you do things and how you think about your organization?
It's a big question. I think number one is that a lot of people think just because you're near a major city, that means that everyone has access to the opportunities that a major city has. But truly, it is not that way. My headquarters is in Quincy. I know that these people in the South Shore, they're working-class people, 9 to 5. So they don't have time to drive their kid into the city for a rehearsal.
We serve students from about twenty-five towns. And each town has a totally different school system, a totally different socioeconomic status, and a totally different demographic of people. Because of that, we see a really diverse group of students. We have students that don't have any issues with tuition as well as students that can't pay any.
We also see students that have a wonderful choir program at their school. Or that choir isn't even an option at their school. So that results in a very diverse group of students. Not only in the sense of their ethnicity and their culture but also just in terms of their life experience.
The South Shore Children's Chorus is really not serving just one demographic. We're serving just this wide variety of human beings that just all come together for this cool cause.
Do you use choir satellites??
Yes! We get on a rocket every week! When I was thinking about building this organization, I actually was inspired by the San Diego Children's Choir, where I had worked previously.
Because of the traffic situation in our area, we run satellites because it’s not practical to have everyone come to our HQ after-school during the week. It would just take too long. So satellites rehearse twice a week with the whole group coming together at our HQ once a month on a Sunday afternoon.
Teachers are on teams of three. They work together absolutely beautifully. They pick repertoire together. They work together to plan the “all together” rehearsal. So they're all teaching really well. And not only that, they're wonderful supports for each other as human beings. And I think that that's really, really fabulous.
How would you describe the culture of the group and where does it come from?
Auditions
I remember that first semester of our pilot, I thought why would we audition them? We just want kids in this thing. They'll be fine. They can sing, they'll be fine. It’s a waste of time to audition because if they're all going to get in anyway. And parents were so grateful! They’d say “Oh my God, I'm so glad because my kids love to sing, but they won't audition for chorus at school because they have to be heard individually before they go in”. I have two or three students now who have soloed in front of 500 or 600 people! Because they had a moment to be comfortable. We don't have auditions, but we have voice placements. And I struggle with that, too. That's still a gate in a way. And teachers say “I want to be able to hear their voice so I can be the best teacher for them”. But if hearing their voice stops them from coming into your class, you can't even be a teacher for them. You can't. They're excluded.Everyone is worthy of learning
If they don't know how to pitch, if they don't know any of that, it's not their fault. I believe that they are worthy of learning that and if you are part of the choir, the expectation is that you believe that everyone is worthy of learning that too. That's how you can give back the privilege you’ve enjoyed by being part of a choir in your school by leaning over to the kid next to you and going “Hey, do you know where we are? Do you need any help? I'd be happy to help you”.Radical Inclusion
One of the things that's really important to us is we've never turned a child away for finances and inability to pay. And there are a lot of groups that maybe will have tuition or they might have a sliding scale. But I really find it important that we include everybody and we don't boil people down to a number. All of them get a yes. That's something that's really important to me. I like to think of it as radical inclusion.
Why do you think you were able to grow so quickly to where you are now?
I truly do think it has to do with the mission and it has to do with how we interact with the community.
“People ask me all the time for tips about getting new singers, and the more I think about that, tips and tricks ain’t going to do it. If you truly want people to come to your program, to be in your choir, you have to do a lot more hard work.”
You better be asking some hard questions. Why do we do things like this? How does that make you feel? How can you be supported? How can you be challenged? When you're asking why you better make sure you're only doing things because they make sense to your organization and who you are serving.
Then the people will come.
But if you're doing things because that's how it's always been done, or if you're doing things because you believe it creates really beautiful sounds on the stage, that's limiting you to a very narrow group of people.
Picking the repertoire: Joy is mission #1
We're doing upbeat, uptempo, exciting music. Each piece is slightly different. I don't do themes. Every piece is different. I'm putting different groups in different order. So there's always something new happening. There's always something exciting happening because quite frankly, yes, we live in a world of technology. And yes, everything moves really fast.
I really like choirs. I really like classical music but I have trouble sitting through a long concert of slow, long pieces. Slow don't do it for me. And I'm not saying that's for everybody, but I know my audience. My audience isn't just about classical music appreciation.
This is about parents who want to see their kids smile and have joy and see other kids smile and have joy. It's about how you measure success. You know, do I have a sound that you would hear in an English chapel choir? No, I don't. That's not what my groups sounds like. But they sound relevant, they sound natural, they sound excited. They love what they're doing. They understand what they're doing, and they're getting better and growing in community and in musicianship.
For me, that's inclusive. For me, that's growing our art. The individual is the priority, music is the vessel, excellence is the byproduct.
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