Album Notes

Hailed by critics as “one of the Peninsula’s finest treasures,” Ragazzi Boys Chorus is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s premier arts organizations. Founded in 1987, the organization is a regional center for music education and performance for boys and young men, ages 7–18. More than 175 singers from 86 schools in 26 Bay Area communities, including San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties, participate in this internationally recognized program. Under the leadership of artistic director and co–founder, Joyce Keil, Ragazzi, which means “guys” in Italian and is also the term used in Italian opera to designate children’s voices, performs a full range of traditional and contemporary works sung in their original languages for both the treble and changed voice. In addition to its own concert series, Ragazzi performs regularly with Bay Area arts organizations including San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Opera San José and West Bay Opera among others and, in March 2008, premiered a children’s opera: The Emperor’s New Clothes by Ted Toews. Honored for the fine quality of its recordings in 2000, Ragazzi Boys Chorus contributed to the San Francisco Symphony’s Stravinsky Firebird, The Rite of Spring, Perséphone CD, which won three Grammy awards, including Best Classical Album. On its own, Ragazzi has recorded four CDs: Good News! 10 Years of Ragazzi Singing, A Holiday Collection, Canciones de Alabanza and Magnificat: My Spriit Rejoices! As part of their Ragazzi experience, choristers travel as American ambassadors while on tour to many countries including Canada, Russia, Eastern Europe, Italy, the British Isles, Japan, Spain, and Portugal. In 2005, Ragazzi was selected to be the Featured American Choir at the Pacific International Children’s Festival (PICCFEST) held in conjunction with the Oregon Bach Festival. In 2006, out of 150 choirs considered, Ragazzi was selected as one of 17 choirs from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America to participate in the 2006 International Choral Festival in Missoula, Montana. Ragazzi toured to Australia and New Zealand in the summer of 2007 and was delighted to be selected for the 2008 International Choral Kathaumixw where Ragazzi sang music spanning its 20-year repertoire at the British Columbia Festival.