Page 4B The Battalion Wednesday, August 23,1989 4 Harlem Boys Choir keeps youth off streets EDITOR'S NOTE — The Bovs Choir of Harlem has earned an in ternational reputation for excellence in music since it was founded in 1968. But the choir, comprised mainly of black youths from poor families, perhaps does its best work in other areas. It takes the young sters off the streets and steers them toward more prt>ductive lives through tutoring and counseling. NEW YORK (AP) — Nathan G. Simmons, an afTablr college musk major with Aghts set on Broadway, still remembers the telephone call that turned him away from life on the mean streets of Harlem. He was ironing his onlv white shirt nine years ago when the phone rang Walter Turnbull, director of the Boys Choir of Harlem, was on the line. “Dr. Turnbull said. ’You’ve been accepted.’ and I was just ecstatic.’' re tails Simmons. 23. “My mother was sitting at the table and I told her. and she got on the phone and started calling people. It was an hon or...and it kept me off the streets.’’ As a 14-vear old. Simmons re members ’’doing baskally nothing except hanging out, meeting people who didn't do much except smoke and drink a lot of beer .** Crack invaded the neighborhood a few years later, and mans of his former buddies dropped out of high school, “graduating’’ instead from beer to the cheap, highly addictive stnokable cocaine. But a different world was opening for this teen-ager. He was performing. He was re ceiving regular tutoring and coun seling and traveling with the choir nationally and internationally t to places other Harlem kids hadn’t even heard about The New York Board of Educa tion calculates that about one-quar ter of the city's blacks drop out of high school, accounting for 39.2 per cent of all dropouts Blacks comprise only 39.9 percent of the high school population troubled Harlem kids are thought to be among the worst aca demic performers. But under Turn bull’s supervision. Simmons went on to college after leaving the Boys Choir in 1984 and is in his final vear at Westminster Choir College, in Princeton, N.J. * It’s not a unique storv, according to Turnbull He says that 98 percent of Boys Choir members — all black and most from desperate Harlem backgrounds — graduate from high school and go on to college. And Simmons’ former friends? “A lot of them have fallen down by the wayside. They’re involved in drugs.** Simmons savs. “W'e don’t really have a lot of long conversa tions. because we are in two differ ent worlds The co-founder of the choir, in 1968, spends 18-hour days oversee ing the musical, scholastic and social needs of more than 200 voung peo ple bet ween the ages of 8 and 18, in cluding a girls’ choir established in 1979. Turnbull. Simmons and others £ »ke in Turnbull’s office — a r«»om minated by a Baldwin habv grand piano, partialis covered by stac ks of sheet music, and by shelves bulging with music books. The office is in old Public School 68. on a floor rented by the choir. Turnbull spoke over a muted back ground of major third chords, sung in unison About 30 boss were warming up in a nearby classroom, its windows covered by heavy wire mesh and overlooking a row of ten ements disfigured by graffiti, some boarded up and abandoned. The towering, robust tenot and former public school teacher took over later, praising and cajoling as he conducted a selection of works in cluding Bach's “Christ laig in Todes- handen” in (German One passage that sounded perfect to the casual listener raised his ire. ’’That's unacceptable, what kind of reading is that?” he thundered, slamming a meaty hand down on his note stand. The kids —some in their mid-teens, all clearly respectful — did it again without a murmur. Turnbull holds a doctorate in mu sic and is proud of the Bovs Choir’s international reputation of excel lence. Besides German, the ensem ble sings in French. Italian. Hebrew and Latin as well as English and has toured much of Europe. It has sung in St. Paul’s in London and St.-Ger- mam-des-Pres in Paris and was off to Japan this month. “It’s a very unique sound.” Turn- bull savs, rejecting attempts at com- C nson with well-known European vs’ choirs. Unlike those, the Har lem ensemble includes tenors and basses as well as the traditional tre bles. Turnbull also places emphasu on the non-musical opportunities for choir members 1 utonng. in subjects ranging from English and mathematics to music theory , is provided six days a week, and some kids go to the choir's own school. Choir members must maintain a B average. Three full-time counselors give year-round career, family and ado lescent counseling. During the sum mer, choir members attend day camp in New York City and a live- away camp in the Connecticut coun tryside. The choir has received interna tional rave reviews, and Barbara Bush, the president's wife, com mented after a June 5 While House performance that the choir’s pro gram of all-round care should be du plicated around the world. But Turnbull and his aides have trouble funding even the one opera tion. Despite some generous corporate donations, the program is enroni- cally short of money — $300.C¥K) was lacking in Mav from a projected budget of $1.4 million, although the choir is fully booked with paving performance dates Most of the children come from one-parent, low-income or welfare families, and Turnbull said the (ounsplors often have their hands full ^ “There are problems within the family, with siblings who might be dealing or messing with drugs, or in some cases even parents." he says. “Poverty is the main problem It all bods down to poverty. “Sometimes parental problems are so severe that they make it diffi cult to come to rehearsals every day. and once they stop coming every dav they kind of fall.” The boys also have to Fight peer pressure from outsiders. “Mans kids are ribbed.” Turnbull says. "But then, their comeback is. ’Have vou ever been to Japan? Have you been to Europe? Have you trav eled to the t -anbbean ?’ "There are all kinds of things that kids in the Bovs Choir of Harlem get to do that most kids would never get the chance to do.’* Actress Rolle says blacks’ role poor in theater WINSTON-SALEM. N.C. (AP) — Esther Rolle has made a name for herself on stage and on television’s "Maude’* and “Good Times.” but she says the lot of the black actor has improved little since she started in snow business in 1942 “No matter what age 1 am or what age they require, I generally have to be fat and gray," Rolle. 55. who played the maid Florida on “Mauoe. said "They can’t see an attractive, mature black grand mother. She has to be gray and decrepit, generallv But a white gra no mother can be her age." Rolle said the best hope for black actors is the small but grow ing number of black producers. Whites, she said, just don’t think of casting blacks in mainstream xulea lowans start the betting on reinstituting river boat gambling on the Mississippi 1 he mighty Mississippi once carried cargo and cotton ana damsels and dandies up and down the lazy river. Now lowans are betting these waters will deliver another precious commodity — greenbacks. Iowa, known more for hogs than high rollers, is moving to revive riverboat gambling, hoping the romance of the past will generate nches for the future. Across America’s heartland, several states are planning or considering gambling ventures to try to bring dollars, fobs ana tourists into struggling industrial cities and small towns hit hard this de cade by factory closings, the farm depression and the exodus of jobs and people. ’I? 1 into the great Rust Belt, vou would not see this great influx of gambling in the guise of economic development." state Sen. 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