The West Los Angeles Children’s Choir was founded in 1997 by its director, Barbara Klaskin Silberg. Since then, it has grown into the go-to source of young singers to back up rock bands, perform on TV shows, and brighten special events.
The choir consists of kids from all over the Los Angeles area. Many join in elementary school and stay until they go off to college.
It began when Barbara rounded up a bunch of neighborhood children to record some holiday songs she had written. She and the kids had so much fun, they kept it going, performing occasionally at local library branches.
The choir’s first professional gig came in 2009, when Michael Jackson hired them to sing in a video he planned to use in his upcoming world tour. His untimely death, just days before the scheduled filming, cut that project short. But other opportunities began to come their way.
By now, they’ve performed on national talk shows from Jimmy Kimmel to Jennifer Hudson, as well as numerous sitcoms, concerts, and awards shows. Atlantic Records calls on the choir to back up recording artists on that label. Universal Studios hired them to sing on the red carpet at a movie premiere. They’ve performed at the Hollywood Bowl, the Greek Theatre, and other impressive venues.
But the choir isn’t only a commercial enterprise. It’s important to the director that it encourages good values and stimulates personal growth in its young singers. So they lend their talents to worthy causes on a regular basis.
For example, the choir conducts twice-yearly concerts to raise funds for a village in the African nation of Cameroon, where their efforts made it possible to construct a pipeline that brings in clean water. And they’re a permanent feature of a benefit held each spring at famed Beverly Hills restaurant Spago to support an international organization devoted to reducing hunger.
Some of the choir’s experiences are just flat-out fun! The European Space Agency beamed their video of “A Song for Planet Earth” to the International Space Station on Earth Day. They sang “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor” at the Statue of Liberty. They performed at “The Great American Think-Off” in New York Mills, Minnesota, and rode a float in the accompanying parade. They sang and acted in Mr. Potcher’s Holiday, the first musical to win the competition Texas Nonprofit Theatres holds every two years.
Choir director Barbara Klaskin Silberg taught music in the Los Angeles public school system for years before she was hired to teach music therapeutically to children and adolescents at UCLA’s neuropsychiatric hospital. She currently devotes herself to the choir in addition to composing music in collaboration with her lyricist husband, Bob.