Homeless group makes it to Carnegie Hall
NEW YORK — They’re homeless, but a group of men and women from Texas has made it to Carnegie Hall. The storied New York City concert hall was the venue of a recent performance by the Dallas Street Choir — all singers recruited from urban streets and homeless shelters, who have been performing since 2015.
About 20 members of the choir were joined by 17 residents of a Manhattan homeless shelter.
The singers included Michael Brown, who lives under a bridge in Dallas when it rains and on a hilltop in sunny weather.
“We may be homeless, but we’re not voiceless,” he says at a rehearsal. “So let’s use our effort to remind people that we still have hope and it will never die.”
Dallas Street Choir conductor Jonathan Palant has also brought in some worldclass luminaries for the performance: mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, soprano Harolyn Blackwell, composer Jake Heggie and composer Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the Broadway hits Godspell, Pippin and Wicked.
Palant says he got the idea for the choir a few years ago while volunteering with a homeless services organization. It started out as a Christmas event — a big meal at a homeless shelter with entertainment by a group of singers that rehearsed with Palant for just a few hours. But that inspired Palant to start a weekly musical session open to anyone who wanted to sing.
Members of the choir come and go frequently. They don’t always produce perfect sounds, and there are moments of slight cacophony, “but our members sing with heart like no other choir I’ve ever worked with”, says Palant.
Never in its 126-year history has a musical ensemble of homeless performers appeared at Carnegie, says the hall’s archivist, Gino Francesconi.
Brown got his first shower and haircut in weeks for the tour. Normally, he survives going to soup kitchens and aims to get a job as a waiter. He’s an energetic, brighteyed choir member, while some others are physically frail; one woman relies on a walker, another uses a cane.
In Dallas, they rehearse each Wednesday morning, learning melodies by rote, with printed lyrics. They leave with snacks and a public transportation voucher.
The show at Carnegie Hall was titled Imagine a World — Music for Humanity.
Von Stade premiered Heggie’s new setting of Hub Miller’s Spinning Song, with Heggie at the piano. With the choir, Schwartz performed For Good from Wicked, along with Blackwell and Von Stade. Rounding out the evening was the choir offering Broadway songs, capped by personal stories.
Tickets were $25 for any Carnegie seat, with proceeds going to organizations that support the homeless.
The New York City Department of Homeless Services donated some tickets so members of the homeless community could attend.
The choir also performed at Washington National Cathedral in Washington DC.
About $200,000 needed for the New York and Washington trips came from previous concerts in Texas, plus a private grant. Carnegie’s Weill Music Institute pulled in the homeless singers from Manhattan. The New Yorkers are members of a community choir.
“This is serious, man — Carnegie Hall in New York City,” says Brown. “We have to show people that we didn’t come from Texas for no reason.”