By Michael Luce
When I say children’s choir, you probably think of cheesy kids’ songs, elementary school performances, cringey Kidz Bop tracks, or boys singing impossibly high notes in some massive European chapel. What you probably don’t think of are rock anthems, messages of hope, and billions of YouTube views.
Meet the cooler alternative to the stereotype: One Voice Children’s Choir. The choir started back in 2001 when founder Masa Fukuda composed a piece for the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics and organized the 2002 Winter Olympic Children’s Choir. At the insistence of the young performers, the group continued practicing and performing after the conclusion of the games and changed their name to One Voice Children’s Choir. Since then, the Utah-based choir has gone on to become a global sensation and has performed all around the world, including sold-out shows in China. One Voice has won international awards, competed on America’s Got Talent (reaching the quarterfinals no less), and has had multiple videos go ultra-viral. However, despite all this success and over 20-year history, the group is finally ready to take another huge step.
While all that flashy YouTube and international stuff is cool, One Voice wants to reach kids and teens on an individual level, making sure they have hope and love. Released today, A Voice for Love is the group’s first full-length album of completely original music, and that message has been at the core of the creative process since day one. And it all came together here in Provo at June Audio. I got a chance to talk with lead songwriter and producer Ross Boothe alongside studio musicians Steve Goold (Scary Pockets, Owl City, Ben Rector), Alex St. Kitts (JP Saxe, Gia & The Unpredictable Update, Mike Stern), and Provo’s own Chase Baker (music for meta, ESPN, Netflix, ABC, and founding member of The Strike) as the tracks came to life.
Not your average kids’ music
At one point, I naively asked this crowd of skilled musicians what sort of differences they felt between this gig and their other work, and I was met with an emphatic insistence that I absolutely had the wrong approach. Each of the collaborators wanted to make it clear that A Voice for Love is as much ‘real music’ as anything else they had worked on. This isn’t ‘music dumbed down’ for kids’; this is authentic, genuinely good music that simply focuses on a slightly younger target audience.
Many of the concepts for A Voice for Love came from a survey asking kids and teens what they were struggling with, and overwhelmingly, isolation and not feeling seen came out as predominant themes. It can be impossibly hard, no matter your age, to feel alone, so One Voice set out to create hope for kids, by kids.
Because of this, A Voice for Love is intentionally a lot more substantive and meaningful than your average kid’s music album. A driving philosophy was just because the listeners or performers are young doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to have their struggles (or music) taken any less seriously. “The kids… wanted to inspire more kindness, more goodness, and more love in their world,” said Boothe. “We wanted to ensure that those messages were delivered in a high caliber album that captured that original spirit and vision.”
Kid-produced, start to finish
When I said earlier this album was made by kids, for kids, I don’t just mean kids sang the songs. Members of the choir were involved in the entire process, from conception to completion. They were present for the writing of the lyrics, composition of the music, and nearly every other step along the way. A few even stopped by to watch the recording process in-person, a treat for both the budding musicians and the pros who got to welcome the next generation into the often closed-off world of music production.
Goold commented on how eager the kids were to learn what everything was, and that while many adults might dismiss the young’uns as a bother, he was more than happy to show them through the process. He didn’t want to be the one throwing up a wall to keep them away, no matter their age or experience. “It’s not another obstacle I’m wanting to put in front of people doing what they love,” he said.
St. Kitts agreed, reflecting on when he was a young musician trying to figure stuff out, “I’m so thankful for the people who treated me like I mattered.”
And perhaps you may have picked up that mattering is one of the core themes of not just A Voice for Love, but the whole process surrounding the One Voice. It’s about remembering that people matter, and they deserve to know they matter, whatever age they might be.
Breaking the stigma
Almost all the contributors present that day were parents themselves, and expressed that kids are not “little characters acting like humans; they’re little humans being little humans.” As parents, they’ve faced the struggle of finding meaningful, content for their kids. Boothe and Goold both pointed out how children’s media often aims to overstimulate and pacify kids instead of treating them like they matter.
While the main goal of this record is to reach those of all ages who need a message of hope and care, at the end of the day, Boothe also hopes that A Voice for Love will help break the stigma of children’s choirs as not real music. It’s real music just as much as the children who perform it are real people. “Kids’ music can be cool. It can be modern. It can be energizing. It can be accessible for whole families—something that parents love to listen to as much as their kids,” he explained. “The material we put into our kid’s heads should motivate them to reach higher, to work harder for good things, and to love deeper.”
In addition to the work at June, A Voice for Love was mixed by Parker Robinson, (a Provo alum now based in Nashville) and was mastered by Will Quinnell from Sterling Sound (OneRepublic, Andy Grammer).
Be sure to follow One Voice Children’s Choir on Instagram! You can listen to the lead single “That’s Love” from A Voice for Love below!