Wheaton, Chicago choir students partner for annual concerts

Music has no boundaries.

Choir students at Franklin Middle School in Wheaton are learning this.

So are choral students from Stevenson Middle School on the far Southwest Side of Chicago, near Burbank.

A winter performance shortly before Christmas marked the third year the two schools have put on joint community performances in both towns.

Franklin Choir Director Crystal Forbes said the partnership between the suburban and urban schools has been beneficial for several reasons.

"It was hoped that not only would the kids grow from using this very performance-based art form to come together and work together, but that social emotional learning skills would be strengthened, that they would look at each other and appreciate each other's differences, but also recognize that even though we may come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, different cultures, there's a lot more about us that is alike than different," she said.

For the first two years, the choirs took part in two joint community performances, one in Wheaton in the fall and the other in Burbank in the spring. They also held a collaborative concert for family members at the end of the school year, first at Franklin in 2014 and then at Stevenson in 2015.

This year, instead of doing the end-of-the-year collaborative performance, the choirs agreed to ramp up their efforts to give back to the community - another reason the joint choir was formed.

In December, the group sang at the DuPage Convalescent Center in Wheaton and the Windsor Park retirement community in Carol Stream. In the spring, they will host two additional community performances near Stevenson.

Before the concerts, Forbes and Stevenson Choir Director Christina Brown talk with the students about the importance of sharing music.

"This is not calling attention to what great singers you are," Forbes says to them. "This is a gift you're giving to someone else. This is the gift of music."

And with that, they go into the concerts with a different mindset, one that magnifies the need to do their very best.

Some of the students, Forbes said, don't have many personal experiences of interacting with the elderly. At first, some were shy at the December concerts. But the teachers asked them to walk up to three residents, shake their hands and wish them happy holidays.

Many stayed and talked to residents for a while after seeing how much they enjoyed the interaction and opportunity to share similar musical experiences they had earlier in their lives.

"You could see a light in the residents' faces that maybe you don't see when you first get there. Seeing beautiful young faces … it turns something on," Forbes said. "(And) it's fulfilling for the kids."