Pittsburgh’s premier musical ensemble for boys who love to sing!
Join our community of passionate musicians at Pittsburgh Boychoir and unleash your creativity.
Pittsburgh Boychoir
A new ensemble for boys ages 9 to 13 is forming in the summer of 2024!
At Pittsburgh Boychoir, we believe that music should be accessible to everyone. We strive to create a welcoming and inclusive community where students can learn and grow in a supportive environment.
The Pittsburgh Boychoir, Inc.,
founded by J. Scot Franklin in 1986, is a community-based choir of boys ages 8-14 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The boychoir has gained wide acclaim through hundreds of concerts in 40 states, Canada, and Russia that included music in as many as 8 languages from Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, Britten, Schubert, Haydn, Mozart, and other great composers from the Medievel, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th Century periods. During it's history, the boychoir oftened appeared on television and radio on such stations as WTAE-TV, WPXI-TV, KDKA-TN, WQED-TV, and WQED-FM. Each year for many years the choir was a featured performer with local weather celebrity Joe DeNardo on "The WTAE-TV PROJECT BUNDLE-UP! telethon, which raise money to purchase winter coats for area children. In addition to it's own concerts, the boychoir was often hired to appear as guest artists with celebrities such as Rosemary Clooney at Heinz Hall, and with such groups as the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra, and Altoona Symphony, the Uniontown Chorale, and the Pittsburgh Opera where the choir, along with members of it's counterpart The Pittsburgh Girls' Choir, appeared to great acclaim in Tosca, Carmen, La Boheme, Boris Godunov, I, Paggliacci, and Der Rosen Cavalier. For 6 years the boychoir sang the national anthem at multiple Pittsburgh Penguins games and also for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsbuergh Steelers.
STRUCTURE: The choirboys began in the TRAINING CHOIR where they received training in unison and two-part harmony, beginning voice pedagogy, music theory, and recorders. Members then advanced to the TOWN CHOIR, which performed in two and three party harmony, trained in more advanced theory, sight-singing, diction, and choreography, and performed in local concerts and a regional concert tour. The TOUR CHOIR was the advanced group of the Pittsburgh Boychoir and made professional concert appearances on radio, television, and ticketed concerts. Each year this advanced group embarked on a 15-20 day concert tour.
SUMMER TRAINING CONFERENCE Over 11 seasons, boys drawn from three counties, trained in twice-weekly rehearsals and memorized as many as 60 songs in 8 languages each concert season. In addition, a select group of 9 boys called the Chamber Choir, attended extra rehearsals to learn Renaissance and Baroque literature. The choirboys would begin each season at their Summer Training Conference, held at area universities such as Slippery Rock University and Geneva College. The 9-day training conference included intensive classes in music theory, solfege, recorder, diction, music notation, voice pedagogy, choreography, and tour etiquette, while also offering recreation such as swimming, sports, drama/skits, jr. olympics, and the very popular "Treasure Hunt", which saw the choirboys split into teams and race around the campus navigating a series of clues and costumed characters to be the 1st team to find the coveted and ultimate treasure...a massive amount of candy and a ticket for the team to attend an off campus pizza party with the music directors. Treasure hunt themes included Batman and his Villians, The Great Swami (played by Betty Ann Cowden), and The Dungeon's Lair. While at the conference each August, the choir would begin work on their Christmas repertoire and a vast Wedding repertoire. The choir was often hired to perform at weddings including for famous Pittsburgh Steelers players.r
CONCERT SERIES The choir's annual Gala Christmas concert series' "Christmas with the Pittsburgh Boychoir" was held each year in the beautiful gothic Heinz Chapel on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. This often
sold-out event became a Pittsburgh musical tradition and was so popular that other concerts were added to the series and held in the south at Mt. Lebanon Presbyterian Church, in Greensburg, Altoona, Monroeville, and the North Hills. Repertoire often included Benjamin Britten's "A Ceremonhy of Carols" and many arrangements from the Oxford Book of Carols arranged by John Rutter and Sir David Willcocks from King's College Cambridge.
The choir's spring concert series, The Spring Gala Concerts, was often held at Mt. Lebanon High School Auditorium and then later at the Byum Theater dowtown, was always held the last day of the choir 15-day Easter concert tour. Parents and fans alike would triumphantly welcome the choir back from it's tour while the boys were at their very finest in poise, purity of sound, and stage etiquette after having just presented concerts over many miles in many states. Repertoire samplings include Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Mozart's Mass in C Major, or Benjamin Britten's Missa Brevis in D, as well as folksongs from around the world and Broadway showtunes.
Founder-Director
J. Scot Franklin sang in a boys choir as a boy and enjoyed the experience immensely. In 1983, at age 22 and upon leaving college, he was asked to be the music director of a tour of Europe for the America's Boychoir, a select group of boy singers selected from 50 states. In 1984, Frankin again was asked to direct a group of boy singers selected from many choirs throughout the United State to appear in concerts in France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Luxembourg with appearances in such cities as Cologne,Germany, Brussles, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Paris, France, where the choir sang High Mass on Easter Sunday in Notre Dame Cathedral. Says Franklin, "I was conducting the choir while standing on the very spot where Napolean crowned himself king...how cool is that!" "
Upon his return from Europe, Franklin had a renewed interest in boychoirs, something he had not thought much about since he was 12. He founded the Highland Boychoir in Uniontown, PA which enjoyed moderate success for two seasons, before he decided to move to the much larger metropolitan area of Pittsburgh. He recruited 75 boys from area schools to form the Pittsburgh Boychoir and rehearsals began in June 1986. The choir began to prepare for a concert debut in several area Christmas concerts throughout the Pittsburgh area in December.
Franklin became friends with many other boychoir directors throughout the United States such as Danual Forsberg (The Austintown Boychoir, OH), Dr. Randall Wolfe (The Cincinnati Boychoir), Jim Litton (The American Boychoir), Daryl James (The Salem Boys Choir (OR), Craig (Andy) Carmody-Anderson (Land of Lakes Choirboys, MN), Daniel Green (The Dayton Boychoir, OH), Steve Myer (The Golden Gate Boycoir, CA), Alexander Musichuk (The Ohio Boychoir), Bill Adams (Fort Bend Boys Choir (TX), and George Bragg, Jack Noble White and Alan Burrato (The Texas Boys Choir, Forth Worth, TX). In fact, it was The Texas Boys Choir program that Franklin patterned his new Pittsburgh group after. "I liked how the Texas choir's repertoire was varied and included the great Classics as well as follksongs from around the world, Civil War songs, patriotic music, and cowboy tunes", Franklin said. "Like them, we often performed in costumes matching the various medleys we were singing."
Franklin became the Eastern Chair of the Committee on Boychoirs for the American Choral Directors Association and held the post for four years. The Committee was responsible for putting together an exhaustive list of boychoirs in all fifty states that were currently "in operation". The task proved to be quite difficult as many choirs on older lists had not up-dated their mailing lists. "This was before the days of the internet!" said Franklin. "The task would be much easier today as most choirs have a website that they constantly update". The end result was a valuable directory for boychoirs that is still in use today. Special thanks goes to Dr. Randall Wolfe, who was the National Chair at the time.
As the Pittsburgh Boychoir's reputation spread during their many national tours, Franklin was asked to be the guest conductor for several Honors Choirs in West Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, and Florida and was a guest conductor at Americafest '96 International Boychoir Festival at St. John's University in Minnesota and the All Ohio Boychoir Festival in Dayton, OH. He was often called upon to train boy singers for such productions as Oliver, The Music Man, Chichester Psalms, The Magic Flute, and Amahl and the Night Visitors, the famous television opera on NBC that featured a boy soprano named Amahl, a poor, crippled boy visited by the three Wisemen on their journey to Bethlehem.
J. Scot Franklin attended West Virginia University where he sang in the University Choir, directed by John Goldsmith but but then later transferred to Point Park University (Pittsburgh, PA) where he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education.
Our Programs
We offer a variety of classes including group classes in music theory sightsing, diction choreography stage and television etiquette , and demonstration workshops. Our programs are designed to meet the needs of students of all skill levels, from beginners to advanced musicians.