Photo Credit: Brent Dundore
It’s almost time to start dreaming of a white Christmas, hanging mistletoe, decking the halls, and jingling those bells. Each year during the holiday season, we’re treated to a feast of music including traditional carols, religious hymns, and pop standards. However, if you’re tired of your favorite artist’s warbling chart-middling rendition of holiday classics, then prepare your ears for the melodic holiday sounds of Broadway Inspirational Voices (BIV). The esteemed choir will perform in a holiday concert at Harlem’s First Corinthian Baptist Church on December 14.
This isn’t the BIV’s first foray into holiday music. Last year the choir performed with Grammy Award-winning pop queen Mariah Carey in her Christmas show at the Beacon Theatre. In 2005, the choir released a holiday CD entitled “Great Joy: A Gospel Christmas” for which BIV founder and director Michael McElroy received a Grammy nomination.
Broadway Inspirational Voices is a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational choir ensemble made up of actors and musicians from Broadway and off‐Broadway shows such as Aladdin, Book of Mormon, Cinderella, Jersey Boys, Kinky Boots, The Lion King, Motown: The Musical, Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked. The BIV’s mission is “strengthening and unifying the New York community through the transcendent power of music. “
The choir was founded in 1994 by Tony nominee, actor, singer, and director McElroy and became the place where he could express his unique arrangements of known and unknown songs in and out of the American gospel and theatre songbooks. Tony Award‐winning actress and singer Phylicia Rashad serves as board president for the choir.
BIV sing Joy To The World from Great Joy: A Gospel Christmas
The BIV’s holiday concert will feature holiday classics as well as new music written and/or arranged by McElroy and music director Joseph Joubert.
Tickets for the BIV holiday concert go on sale November 1. For more information, visit here.
#SaveTheDate for our @BIVoices Holiday Concert, 12/14 @FCBC_NYC! pic.twitter.com/I1yatmhdfv
— Broadway Insp Voices (@BIVoices) October 19, 2015
