All City Concert Choir - Every Time I Feel The Spirit

Part reunion, part roast but 100% singing spectacle, the All City Concert Choir reclaimed its perch atop New York Citys choral society on Saturday, March 14 at St. Francis College with a two hour concert celebration of the choir and the man who conducted them for decades, Dr. John Motley.

More than 70 members of the choir, from as far away as Puerto Rico, returned to Brooklyn and after only two rehearsals took the stage with barely a hint of the years that had passed since they last performed together.

The event, the inaugural St. Francis College Chancellors Concert, also gave the audience a deep look inside the camaraderie and friendships that held the choir together. Choir members used the time on stage to needle Dr. Motley at every turn, showing their love for a man who cared for them like a father. Between songs, members shared anecdotes about everything from the amount of time they spent rehearsing, including on subway rides to and from practice, to a kiss on the cheek one woman received from Golda Meir after singing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold) at the Brooklyn Museum.

Several of the chorus members have gone on to musical careers of their own in opera, jazz and classical music, including conductor Julius Williams, a Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston, who arrived in Brooklyn the afternoon before the concert after an extended engagement in Prague. Due to illness Janice Dixon, an accomplished opera singer based in Germany was unable to attend but promised to come to New York in the future to perform a recital with all proceeds going to a scholarship named for their leader and mentor.

In the late 60s Dr. Motley, then the Director of Music for the New York City Public Schools pulled together a group of 50 singers from the existing All City High School Chorus and formed a traveling concert choir. For the next two decades, that group sang at some of the most prestigious locations in New York City; from extended runs at Radio City Music Hall to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and at the opening of the Twin Towers. They performed for everyone from President Jimmy Carter to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and the Shah of Iran, Pope John Paul II, the Apollo 14 Astronauts and for Mayors Abe Beame and John Lindsay. They also sang with musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and opera singers Marian Anderson, William Warfield and Camilla Williams. The Choir hosted TV specials on WCBS, WPIX and WWOR where they appeared numerous times on the weekly John Lindsay program.

Money raised through tickets sales and ads in a special journal for the event will go towards the endowment of the John Motley Scholarship at St. Francis College.

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