Editor’s note: Boston Children's Chorus (BCC) is celebrating its 21st season this year, and Kenneth Griffith is celebrating his first season as its music director. BCC singers range from age 7 to 18, and they come from more than 100 zip codes across the city and the greater Boston area. In his role as music director, Griffith conducts the Premier Choir — the most advanced high school ensemble. He also coaches teaching assistants and assistant conductors, programs all of BCC’s music, and leads the organization in artistic vision.
Cog interviewed Griffith in advance of the Chorus's annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute Concert at Symphony Hall, where BCC will have close to 400 singers on stage — children and teenagers from neighborhood choruses, school programs and their after school program. Each year, BCC selects a theme for its upcoming season, and this year’s, “True Colors,” is especially close to Griffith's heart. He told Cog, “It's really exciting to be at a place like Boston Children's Chorus because we were founded not by a musician, but by an activist, Hubie Jones. And because of that, music and care for social justice, and for the community, have always been part of the DNA of the organization.”
Here he is, in his own words, edited for length and clarity.
— Sara Shukla
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Since I was young, the place I've most consistently felt seen, accepted, and at home has been the same: choir rehearsal. When I was growing up, I felt like I was kind of an outsider in a lot of my school classes, or like I didn't fit in, and the choir was the only space where I felt like I could show up as exactly who I was — and get to feel accepted and loved and warm.
It was also where I got to delve into stories, to learn folk songs, to try to understand other people's perspectives and journeys. It was an opportunity for me to not necessarily step outside of who I was, but to just step into who I was in that room. It made a big difference for me, how I was able to move through the world. And the idea of showing up exactly as I am — a proud Black and gay man — and lending my voice to a group that respects me for all those things, still grounds me to this day.
When I get to step onto a stage, now, and I'm in my sparkly velvet jacket, or if I show up on day one of rehearsal, and it's a little hot, and I have my rainbow fan, and I slip a little bit into my Cincinnatian slightly southern drawl — my singers love me, and it feels really affirming to be able to be in that space.
Even as music director, where you step into a role and hear terms like “executive presence,” or things you traditionally associate with well-to-do heterosexual white men and power — I don't always exude all of that. But at BCC, I feel confident in who I am. The value I've taken from my experience as a musician, and the confidence, skill and fluency of language I’ve built, it all makes me feel okay — more than okay — showing up exactly as I am.
In our rehearsals we have lots of conversations around what's happening in the world and how we feel about it. What are the ways we feel as if we have to hide some part of ourselves in order to be a part of the group? And what does that mean for us as people, to have to shed these layers all the time? And if you end up showing up as not a whole person, how does that really benefit everybody? It doesn't. Our younger singers are talking a lot about being an upstander and not a bystander. And to love themselves, but also to be emboldened, to feel comfortable standing up for people they care about as well.
Our MLK concert at Symphony Hall is celebrating the life and legacy of Bayard Rustin, and Mr. Rustin is someone who, I think, you would know much more about if circumstances were different. He was forced to do much of his work behind the scenes due to his sexuality. He's the strategic mind behind the March on Washington, and he was a great influence on Dr. King and his acceptance and embracing of nonviolence, which really was something that became key in the mainstream being able to understand and empathize with the civil rights movement.
I want us to have an eye to creating a world in which people haven't had to hide who they are, so we can celebrate their successes in their own lifetime. With Rustin in particular, a lot of people knew about him, but the public perception around his sexuality was that this could be harmful to the movement, instead of it being viewed as an asset. We don't have time for that anymore. The time is now. Create the world you want to live in — and do it with love, and joy.
Often when you're talking about marginalized populations, we concentrate on the struggles, and not the joy. And we want this to be a celebratory space too. To be a member of these communities, to be Black, or to be gay, or to be trans, it's something that you can celebrate: not a life marked by pain and sorrow, but success and triumph too.
There's one person in my choir who has been in BCC for 10 years, and I've watched, in these last few years in particular, the level of comfort that he has in who he is and his expression. He has found this ability to connect to the music and grow as a leader within our choir, connecting with other people in meaningful ways. I've even seen this person have the confidence to take these conversations outside of choir, and part of his identity outside of our room, and share it with people he cares about. It takes guts and vulnerability to be able to say, by virtue of the skills I've been building here, and the community that's formed around me to uphold me, to lift me up and support me, I feel like I'm able to do this other thing in my life that feels really meaningful.
That will impact me for the rest of my life. And when the choir performs, and I’m awash in the sound of 300 or 400 singers, and all their individual stories, and all of the meaning that they've found in this music and in themselves that they're suddenly unlocking and sharing with the rest of the world, I get to be right in front of that. I feel light. I feel emboldened and I feel proud.
