After more than a decade as chief executive of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Allison Vulgamore took a sabbatical to travel to a prison in Morocco for boys. She shares her transformative experience of preparing them to sing in a concert without the benefit of a shared language.

Personal stories can be a vital way to communicate the value of your chorus.

Choruses are pouring more resources and creativity into education outreach programs that have a far-reaching impact on students, teachers, schools, and communities—as well as on the choral artists who deliver them.

How Minnesota's VocalEssence and composer Eric Whitacre helped high school students, choral directors, and community members of all ages discover the power of contemporary choral music through a festival and community sing event.

Inner-city choruses are serving diverse populations in large urban areas where kids often do not have access or the means to participate in quality musicmaking. These "urban youth choruses" are uniting neighborhoods across differences of race, religion, ethnicity, and economic status to inspire and energize communities with messages of hope and healing.

Thanks to a residency program, one composer spends time with three high school choirs, creating new music, new singers, and audiences for the future.

Thorough preparation is key to a flawless performance when 200 million listeners tune in to hear the annual (and beloved) broadcast of the King's College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.

Chorus America's Conducting Masterclasses give conductors valuable podium time. Offered in 2004, this was the first workshop of its kind to specifically invite conductors of children's choruses to advance their professional training by working with the Chicago Children's Choir and orchestra.

Activities undertaken by children and teens can profoundly influence the shape of their lives, and singing in a chorus is unusually powerful. Interviews with choral singers show that such early encounters grow into close, passionate relationships with music and choral singing, reflecting the positive influence that choral singing plays in bringing value, direction, and meaning to lives.