Chorus America’s 2024 Awards Recognize Outstanding Choruses and Individuals

Education and Community Engagement Award: Long Beach Camerata Singers

The Education and Community Engagement Award recognizes programs that expand a chorus’s role in its community. Successful programs demonstrate mission-based program development, viable music education, effective management and fiscal integrity, a commitment to artistic achievement, and collaborations that are sustainable, beneficial, and meaningful for all partners.

The 2024 Education and Community Engagement Award honors a chorus with a budget of over $200,000 and goes to Long Beach Camerata Singers. The Camerata Children’s Music Academy Program provides fundamental music education to preschool students ages 2-5 at three Early Childhood Education Centers run by the Greater Long Beach YMCA, which offers state-subsidized childcare to low-income families. The in-depth program teaches concepts like melody, harmony, beat, and tempo during 30-minute classes that meet three times per week, overcoming traditional barriers to access like cost and transportation. A rigorous evaluation process shows that participating students demonstrate increased language development and improved social skills, motor skills, and emotional regulation, entering kindergarten and the public school system on more equal footing with peers from affluent families.

“All of us at Camerata are thrilled and honored to receive the Chorus America 2024 Education and Community Engagement Award for our Camerata Children’s Music Academy,” said board president Jan B. Hower. “The project has been a success because of the dedication of many creative people who contributed to the vision, resulting in the program we have today. We hope this recognition will spark the interest of funders and donors, allowing us to make this vital resource available to even more children.”

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