Profile of Dianne Berkun Menaker
“The trouble with choral music, Dianne Berkun Menaker thinks, is it’s a tad standoffish, what with all the formal robes and ecclesiastical vibes. For some people, “it becomes an academic thing — not something they can identify with,” she says. Good thing Menaker happens to be a choral director. She is the founder of the prestigious Brooklyn Youth Chorus, a diverse Grammy-award winning choir made up of 600 students who hail from New York City’s roughest neighborhoods to its most elite. The group regularly performs a mix of contemporary classics and pop-music-inspired pieces at celebrated venues like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center.” —The Story Exchange, December 2018
Review of Silent Voices Album
“The truth of Silent Voices is that the Brooklyn Youth Chorus displays tremendous musicianship, stylistic sensitivity, and vocal flexibility while powerfully demanding that listeners confront hard truths about racism, gender roles and discrimination, ageism, the social responsibilities of politics, and displaced populations. Period.” —I Care if You Listen, December 2018
Top 10 Contemporary Classical Music Albums of 2018
“Silent Voices not only gives voice to those who have been historically marginalized, but also gives the members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus agency over their message and their music making, allowing them to act as catalysts for change. The young choristers not only demonstrate a mature comprehension of the subject matter, but also exhibit an impressive command of vocal styles ranging from hip hop to gospel to contemporary techniques to bel canto singing.” —I Care if You Listen, December 2018
Review of Silent Voices
“Since its founding 25 years ago by its indefatigable artistic director, Dianne Berkun Menaker, it has given voice to children and young adults from a wide range of backgrounds. Musically, too, it fosters diversity with a targeted training program that teaches choristers to sing in a variety of styles and sounds. Typical members of the chorus’s professional-level concert ensemble know how to shade their voices to sound idiomatically pop, classical or gospel. [of Caroline Shaw’s ‘So Quietly’]…Using novel vocal techniques, including sharp, rhythmic breathwork, the music…(also demonstrated the enormous versatility and polish of these young singers.)” —The New York Times, May 2017
Review of Silent Voices
“Right out of the gate, in Shaw’s “so quietly,” the seven-stage musicianship program required for the BYC singers paid off as they conquered extremely complex rhythms with accuracy, not to mention perfect intonation. Even the microtonal slides and widely changing vocal timbres – including audible breathing – typical of Shaw were child’s play to these teens.”…“Everybody’s been really transformed.” She was referring to the choristers who created Silent Voices. But it was true of the audience who heard the piece as well.” —Classical Voice North America, May 2017
New York Premiere of James MacMillan’s St. Luke Passion with the New York Choral Society
“The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, prepared by its artistic director Dianne Berkun Menaker, proved equal to its prominent role and then some. By the choice of a children’s choir, MacMillan evidently intended to give Christ’s words an otherworldly sheen, and this chorus delivered with pure unisons, finely tuned polyphony and secure high entrances, and gave its elders some lessons in diction as well.” —New York Classical Review, April 2017
Review of Black Mountain Songs Album
“Originally staged as a choreographed pageant at bam’s Harvey Theatre, in 2014 (the late Harvey Lichtenstein, bam’s dynamic director, was a Black Mountain alumnus), “Black Mountain Songs” earned a rave review in the Times—and when you hear the astonishingly secure performance of the young singers, who have been tasked with executing some formidably complex choral textures, you immediately understand why.” —The New Yorker, April 2017
Review of Aging Magician at the New Victory Theater
“The score is vividly performed by the impressive members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus(Dianne Berkun Menaker, conductor), who become a kind of Greek chorus, and the fine string players of the Attacca Quartet. Some of the choral writing is ethereal, unfolding in long-spun lines and chantlike phrases. Yet there are complex stretches of cluster chords that the choristers sing with precision (and from memory)…During some frenetic, ha-ha-ha outbursts, the young singers draw upon their inner demons to chilling effect.” —The New York Times, March 2017
Review of Black Mountain Songs at BAM
“Black Mountain Songs,” an exhilarating 90-minute staged choral work with readings, videos, dancers and, at its core, the singing of the impressive Brooklyn Youth Chorus … The choral songs at the heart of this work are performed with confidence, energy and tenderness (and from memory) by the 50 skilled singers of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus … The sheer beauty of their singing was captivating … Ms. Berkun-Menaker is a remarkable choral director … It was heartening to see them basking in the standing ovation that “Black Mountain Songs” won from the audience that filled the theater.” —The New York Times, November 2014
Joan of Arc at the Stake with Marion Cotillard and the New York Philharmonic
“The members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus (Dianne Berkun-Menaker, director), models as always of musical and dramatic confidence, appear as sheep, little beasts, they’re called, to cheer on the trial.” —The New York Times, June 2015
Features of the Chorus
“Among New York’s choral groups, Brooklyn Youth Chorus stands alone.” —New York Magazine, May 2009
“Brooklyn Youth Chorus is as fine as it gets, in demand with the greatest orchestras and the most important composers.” —Brooklyn Rail, November 2012