Community chorus in Manhattan?

September 24, 2014 2:23 PM

I'm looking to temporarily join a community chorus in Manhattan for a few months this winter. I've found van.org but as far as I can make out it lists mostly pretty serious choirs and chorales.

Everything I've looked at on van.org so far involves an audition, including sight reading, which I can't do. I sing tenor in a community choir here in Bristol, UK, which I enjoy very much. I'll miss it while I'm away.

3 months or so isn't long enough to really cement myself into a group, but I can maybe help bulk out the sound for events in the lead up to the holidays. But the emphasis is really on a group that sings for fun. Everything I've seen so far seems so serious. That's great, I'm glad there are people who really put their passion into it, and I get it that those groups aren't for me, especially as I don't have the time to commit to them. What I want to do is find the fun ones where I can have fun singing and meeting a few people.

I'll mostly be staying in the Inwood/Hudson Heights bit of northern Manhattan.

posted by aesop to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

I know the New York City Gay Men's Chorus is pretty great, and sings for fun. Their auditions do require you, I THINK, to sight read, but it's not a big deal if you can't. You don't have to be gay to join, but obviously most people are.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:56 PM on September 24, 2014

(Also, the director of the NYCGMC is from London)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:57 PM on September 24, 2014

I have a friend who lives in Inwood and sings in a chorus, so I told her about your question in a FB message. Here is her response:

It is the NYC community chorus. Jack Eppler is the director. It is a great chorus, no auditions and he would be a great fit I am sure. We meet Monday night at 6pm at 28th and 9th ave in a church. We are not a church chorus.

She hasn't answered me yet on contact info, so I looked up their website. It's http://nycccha.org/

I'm not sure whether your schedule and theirs will fit, but it's worth a shot.
posted by zorseshoes at 8:32 PM on September 24, 2014

Response by poster: As cool as the NYGMC sounds (and I actually even heard of them, I think, so also, woh, sort of famous) I'd feel like I was eroding something that was supposed to be "for" gay men if I just showed up like it didn't mean anything that I'm not gay. I'm not saying anyone would necessarily criticise me for it, but I'd be seeing think bubbles. Which is maybe my problem, and maybe not. Maybe I should just ask.

(Not intended as a criticism of your answer roomthreeseventeen, btw. It's not as if anyone here knows me, after all!)

NYCCHA might work out. Sounds like the right sort of thing. I'd be amazed if there wasn't something a bit closer in NYC though; there are certainly more choices where I live. But maybe NYCCHA are just really good.
posted by aesop at 11:10 PM on September 24, 2014

Take the C or E to the A train, (transfer at 168?), and you're home. Easy. That's a sweet little church, too.
posted by JimN2TAW at 4:19 AM on September 25, 2014

I think part of the problem in NYC is that the city is full of thousands and thousands of professionally trained singers who went to Juilliard, are trying to make it on Broadway, etc., and most of them won't make it big professionally. But they still want to keep singing-- and thus, every little church or neighborhood choir is a semi-professional group with a serious and difficult audition process. At least that's what I found when I lived in NYC as someone who likes to sing, but is neither professionally trained nor super-serious about it. It wasn't until I moved to a smaller city that I found the sort of choir you're looking for.
posted by rhymeswithcheery at 7:00 PM on September 25, 2014