Anthony White’s Detroit Youth Choir takes over “Wicked”

The Detroit Youth Choir has become a powerhouse of young talent, transforming over 1,500 performers between ages 8 and 18 into a nationally recognized artistic force. Under the leadership of Anthony White, who took over the organization nearly three decades ago as a 20-year-old college student, the choir has evolved from a local Detroit group into what White calls “the choir for America.” 

Now, they’re bringing their signature sound to Wicked performances at select Emagine theater locations from November 17 through 21, offering audiences a unique pre-movie concert experience that showcases their versatility beyond their America’s Got Talent fame.

How did you build the Detroit Youth Choir into what it is today

What people don’t know is that around 27 years ago, I was afforded the opportunity to take over the Detroit Children’s Choir. It was under the directorship of Fleming Ivory, and Mr. Ivory had plans to move to Memphis, Tennessee. It was either I take over the organization, or the organization would crumble and fold. So, as a 20-year-old fresh college student, I decided to take on the responsibility. 

I look at it as a blessing, and it posed a lot of challenges back then. But right now, I’m almost 50 years old, and it’s kind of like a part of my bloodline. I worked so hard for this organization to be an institution in the city of Detroit and now it is an institution in the city of Detroit. We’re coming up on our 30th year as an organization next year.

Tell us about this Wicked partnership and how it came together

The Wicked opportunity, this time around, came from the Emagine folks who reached out and wanted to know if we would like to perform before the Wicked show starts. At first, I was like, well, I don’t know, I have to teach both of our choirs the music. The funny thing is, last season, I taught a lot of Wicked because “Defying Gravity” was the big thing last year. 

So, both choirs actually knew it, so all I had to do was kind of refine it. We have some extraordinary singers and performers with DYC that I didn’t really have to do too much work. They pretty much did everything on their own. Our wonderful choreographers put together the moves, and everything went well with that.

What can audiences expect from these performances

Just to see our kids, because DYC, we already are performers. But just to see us do something out of the ordinary. We love Broadway, and we love movies, so we kind of put the two together, and we’re gonna recreate some of the great scenes from the first movie, Wicked. We’re gonna recreate a few of the songs. I don’t want to give it away, but we want to recreate some of the songs and kind of just show the audience that we can do more than just pop songs and different things.

Working with kids aged 8 to 18 must present unique challenges

It takes a lot of patience to work with these young people, because since I’ve been doing this so long, a lot of the generations are different. The only artist that transcends generations is Michael Jackson. And now, I think Wicked is one of those two, because before my daughter was like a baby when Wicked came to Broadway. And now she’s 17 and about to graduate high school, and she’s doing Wicked. That’s remarkable. 

I would say Wicked is very transcendent, and the Detroit Youth Choir, we are the choir for America. Even though we’ve been over to Africa, we’ve been a few places, and everywhere we go, we take a little bit of Broadway, we take a little bit of pop, rhythm and blues. These young people, they gotta be on their toes when they’re doing DYC.

What makes the Detroit Youth Choir sound uniquely Detroit

Some of our kids go to Detroit Public Schools and they have a really quiet sound. And it’s not really Detroit. DYC has a loud, boisterous, in your face sound. And that’s the sound that people hear when they see us on America’s Got Talent, even our Disney+ show. They’re probably like, why are they singing so loud? Because I try to have a distinctive sound. 

I tell our kids, don’t be quiet with it, be loud with it. When we went over to Nairobi last year, the kids were able to spread the DYC sound. A lot of people don’t expect classical from the Detroit Youth Choir, but we can do classical, we can do Broadway, we can sing in different languages. Our youngest choir, Limelight, they’re performing the opera at the Music Hall in February. It’s called “Turandot,” and a lot of people are like, those gonna be the kids of DYC? Yes, DYC, we can do everything. I don’t want people to think that we’re one-dimensional.

How do you maintain support for the young performers

Even my wife tells me she doesn’t understand why I keep going, and why I do it even when the odds are against us. I just rely on the young people. If the young people are fine, I’m fine. Even though their parents might not be fine, I’m fine if the young people are fine. We also have a great Parent Coordinator system where they are the communication between the parents and myself. 

We have a great staff, and then we have our parent coordinators, which kind of takes the cake. We’re just your everyday nonprofit. We work off of grants and sponsorships, donations, and right now, we’re actually looking for a new headquarters, a new home for the Detroit Youth Choir. We’ve been at Marygrove Conservancy for seven years, but I believe that we need our own building to kind of spread our wings a little bit.

What are your future aspirations for the choir

I always tell everybody, because we have the Disney+ series, what I’m really trying to do is get a cartoon going. One of my visions is to get a cartoon, something like Scooby-Doo, but actually, it’s like the Detroit Youth Choir in a mystery van. Also, we have a podcast coming as well. It’s gonna be a twice-a-week thing, where we have guests and talk about things going on in Detroit. 

A lot of people want to hear from the young people, and I’m looking to have Mayor Sheffield and different people on our show. We’re supposed to go to Hawaii in March, but we’re looking for donors and sponsors for that. We have a Christmas concert coming December 13th at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. That’s gonna be all three of our choirs in concert.

How can young people join and how can the community support

You can always go to Detroityouthchoir.org, but we do have auditions January 3rd at the Marygrove Conservancy, located on 8425 West McNichols, Detroit, Michigan. It’s gonna be in our headquarters, which is on the fourth floor of the main building. It’s gonna be from 12 to 5 that day. 

The criteria is, I’m just looking for young people that have music in their hearts. They don’t have to be the perfect singer. They don’t have to be the perfect dancer, but if you have music in your bones and in your heart, I am very much looking for you. Ages 9 to 18. I will take an 8-year-old, but I like to stay with the 9-year-olds to 18.

How to support the Detroit Youth Choir, you can go to our website and go to the tab that says donate. Detroityouthchoir.org/donate, and you can donate to the Detroit Youth Choir. You can do weekly donation or yearly donation, it’s really up to you.

The Detroit Youth Choir will perform songs from Wicked at select Emagine Theatre locations during the movie’s opening week. Audiences can experience their pre-movie concert performances on Monday, November 17 at 6:30 PM at Emagine Novi, Wednesday, November 19 at 6:00 PM at Emagine Canton, Thursday, November 20 at 6:00 PM at Emagine Rochester Hills, and Friday, November 21 at 6:00 PM at Emagine Royal Oak. Tickets for Wicked are available at www.Emagine-Entertainment.com.