New Jersey Youth Chorus Singing At Citi Field

The New Jersey Youth Chorus will be singing the National Anthem at Citi Field before the Mets vs Padres game on June 14th. It’s a non-profit youth choral education program, and one hundred of them between third and twelfth grade will belt out the Star-Spangled Banner. This is something they can do every couple of years. The last time they performed at the stadium was in May of 2022.

Their performance at the Mets game will round out a season of community engagement and performances by the New Jersey Youth Chorus. This included singing at Radio City Music Hall, and a performance of Carmina Burana in Mendham, NJ.

I spoke with Trish Joyce who is the founder and director of New Jersey Youth Chorus. Trish talked about the age requirement to get involved with the chorus, and shared some of the amazing things they've done including performances at the Super Bowl and the White House.

Check out my chat with Trish here:

The New Jersey Youth Chorus was recently named the recipient of the 2024 Dale Warland Singers Commission Grant presented by Chorus America and the American Composers Forum, which will support a composition to be premiered next season.

Wharton Arts’ mission is to offer accessible, high-quality performing arts education that sparks personal growth and builds inclusive communities.

The vision is for a transformative performing arts education in an inclusive community to be accessible to everyone. They are New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community performing arts education center serving over two thousand students through a range of classes and ensembles.

The 5 ensembles of the New Jersey Youth Chorus, an auditioned choral ensemble program for students, encourage a love and appreciation of choral music while nurturing personal growth and creative development.

The fifteen ensembles of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, which serve nearly 600 students, inspire young people to achieve musical excellence through high-level ensemble training and performance opportunities. Based in Paterson, the Paterson Music Project is an El Sistema-inspired program of Wharton Arts that uses music education as a vehicle for social action by empowering and inspiring young people to achieve their full potential through the community experience of ensemble learning and playing.

From Pathways classes for young children to Lifelong Learning programs for adults, the Wharton Performing Arts School has a robust musical theater and drama program and offers both private and group classes for instruments and voice for all ages and all abilities. With the belief in the positive and unifying influence of music and that performing arts education should be accessible to all people regardless of their ability to pay, Wharton Arts offers need-based scholarships.

Wharton Arts is in Berkeley Heights, New Providence, and Paterson, New Jersey, and reaches students from twelve counties. All of Wharton Arts’ teaching artists, faculty members, and conductors hold degrees in their teaching specialty and have been vetted and trained to enable our students to achieve their personal best.

There are many life lessons to be taken from coaching youth sports. Sometimes, they can be the same lessons your little players are also learning. Perhaps as an adult, you are simply learning these lessons again. Or you may just be interpreting them through a different lens.

This is the first memory I have as a kid playing basketball. It's a sentence I will never forget. My coach was a former standout at the University of South Carolina. He treated us as if he was the actual Division One South Carolina coach, and we were his 5-star recruit players about to enter March Madness. We were ten years old. It sounds intense, I understand, but herein lies the first rule of coaching youth sports. There are some values that are non-negotiable.

When you break it down, these values are all centered around respect. Respect for yourself and those around you. Respect becomes a way of life. It's how an athlete carries themselves and how they approach the game. Therefore, it's important as a coach to ask yourself if respect is present in the environment you and your team are creating. It has a way of applying to everything while also being an evolving process.

Speaking of which, more often than not, youth coaches are volunteers. This means that they are not paid. Sometimes, they never even played the sport they are coaching. However, they care enough to dedicate their time and attention to help make the sporting experience memorable for the youth program. So keep that in mind and cut them some slack. This is true of referees and umpires, as well.

Coaching youth sports can be a year-round commitment. We often end one season and immediately transition to the next sport. Here are five life lessons learned from coaching youth sports.

There’s no better feeling than working tirelessly for something you really want, and then accomplishing it. Especially if you are an underdog. You learn to enjoy the struggle. It makes the reward that much sweeter. The most valuable lesson from this piece is that once you dedicate yourself to putting in whatever it takes, this becomes a mindset. No win comes for free. You aren't entitled to playing time. Both of those must be earned. There's nothing wrong with reminding yourself of that while preaching to your kids about how to get playing time.

Your definition of exercise might be a sweaty cardio workout in the gym. But as a coach, exercise has a broad meaning. Certainly, getting yourself outside with a team and teaching them the importance of stretching and preparing your body is essential to physical success. Coaching a sport like football, for example, your two hours a day on the field are laser-focused on just that. There, you are giving yourself some mental exercise, taking a break from all the other work, stress, or life-circumstances. You can forget everything else when you hit the field, court, or rink.

Whether you manage a soccer team or a sales team, you're leading a collection of individuals. What makes your top performer tick is not the same as what makes a lesser player (or employee) with potential, tick. This lesson centers around relationship-building and listening. How you run your team is about you, and how your players apply these guidelines is about them.

...Nor are they getting a full scholarship offer to a top NCAA college at this age. You may see things in your kid or another on the team where your experience makes you think a certain player has a shot at the big time. But that time is not right now. Your coaching duty is to give the best experience possible to your players. How does creating an entire game plan around one super-talented 10-year old give the other 20 kids a fair chance? How does it give them a memorable experience? Or something to build off for next year. Or confidence. Again, those refereeing your games are most likely high school or college kids themselves. They're just trying to work and earn some money. Again, cut them some slack.

Your tone in addressing your players, the refs, and the other team matters, too. Be cognizant of how you deliver your messages. You may have an incredibly impactful point to make, but if you don't articulate it correctly, and cater to your audience, it can be useless. Coaching youth sports is about the overall experience, not the final score, and not the final record. Your stats don't matter, your voice does.