Choral Outreach Program

The UCLA Choral Outreach Program, directed by Dr. Rebecca Lord, serves  junior high and high schools in California and across the nation.

 

Ranked as one of the nation’s top ten music programs (2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges), our mission is to reach out and enhance the lives of young people in the community in a manner that is truly life-impacting.  We do this through partnerships with teachers and schools, offering clinics in the schools and on the UCLA campus, honor choirs, and quarterly choral outreach concerts at UCLA. Our goal is to reinforce and support the great work music educators are doing, and to encourage and inspire students to pursue musical & artistic pursuits and higher education.

 

Here are some quotes from students & teachers we worked with in 2011:

 

  • This was the best experience of my life! It was just wonderful and amazing! I loved everything, EVERYTHING!! 
  • My appreciation for classical & choral music was much extended by this experience and I hope to listen to much more throughout my lifetime. Thank you!
  • This is my first time of watching a concert. Never seen anyone play a harp before… Is that how you spell harp? Very moving! There is no other word to say but perfection! Wish I could take this music back home!!
  • Once I get out of high school, I really hope I can stand up there and sing with all of you!
  • “Dr. Lord is professional, knowledgeable, articulate, inspiring and my students loved her. You have a real gem there!”
  • “I really like how she made our song have feeling and not just be a song. I had fun singing! I hope Dr. Lord comes back again soon!”

 

We would like to invite you and your choral ensemble(s) to our free outreach concerts at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall, presented by our Chamber Singers, Chorale and University Chorus.  Concerts will be held at noon on:  Friday, March 16; and Friday, June 8.  Transportation is to be arranged by you and your ensemble, but these performances are available free of charge. Please e-mail us at chorale@ucla.edu for further details.

 

Our choirs may be able to serve as a tremendous example of choral singing for your students.  As public school choral director Heather Gold recently mentioned: “Every time my students hear your UCLA singers, they retain an enormous amount of disciplined singing example, and stay on a ‘high’ for months!”  We hope that this opportunity will serve you and your singers in the same regard.

Dr. Rebecca Lord, Bio: 

Associate Director of Choral Activities & Choral Outreach Director, Dr. Lord also serves as the Chorus Master for the Arizona Musicfest in Phoenix. Dr. Lord received her MM & DMA in conducting under the instruction of Donald Neuen at UCLA, where she was named the top music graduate student. She has conducted in concert all of UCLA’s major choral and orchestral ensembles, as well as the Early Music Ensemble.

Dr. Lord was one of five young orchestral conductors selected nationally to conduct in the 2011 Atlantic Music Festival. She also recently prepared choirs for the Los Angeles performances of Pandemonium (by the creators of STOMP) & Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, & assistant conducted Monteverdi’s Vespers in Columbia, South Carolina. She will be conducting at Carnegie Hall’s Transient Glory Symposium this February.

Equally at home as a violinist, violist, vocalist, actress, and dancer, Dr. Lord has performed in many locations around the country.  As a soprano in NYC’s Trinity Wall Street Choir and Bach Vespers Choir, she performed repeatedly as a soloist.  Elsewhere, she has soloed in oratorio and concert settings. A member of Actor’s Equity, Dr. Lord has performed as a professional actress for over fifteen years. She has performed as a violinist for professional opera, ballet and theatre companies, on tour, and in the recording studio. She has conducted public school music in Pennsylvania and Utah.

Dr. Lord holds a Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude, in vocal performance from Georgia State University and a certificate of acting from Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre School.  She has also studied at the Eastman School of Music and the Chautauqua Institute.