Ragazzi Choral Scholars - USA
Choral Scholars is a changed-voice chamber group selected from experienced Young Men’s Ensemble members. It is an internal honor choir— membership requires great musicianship and singing, and excellent citizenship. Choral Scholars rehearse with Concert Group weekly and monthly; they perform repertoire of the highest difficulty and musical standards at home and on tour.
Joyce Keil, Artistic Director and co-founder of Ragazzi, has served as panelist, adjudicator, and guest conductor for music teachers and choirs throughout the Western United States. An experienced teacher, she has served on the faculties of the College of Holy Names, Notre Dame de Namur University, and Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco. Ms. Keil studied under the “Dean of Choral Music”, Howard Swan, at Occidental College and later with John Alexander at Cal State Northridge. She has prepared choirs for San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony, for conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Raymond Leppard and James Conlon. She is the founder of the choral program and Advanced Placement Music Theory curriculum at Crystal Springs Uplands School, where students received unanimous superior ratings for their ensemble and solo work. Ms. Keil has served as the Western Division and California State Chair of the Boychoir Committee for the American Choral Directors Association, and has sat on the College Board for Advanced Placement Music Exams. Ragazzi Boys Chorus, under Joyce Keil’s leadership, received a GRAMMY Award in 2000 for participating in the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Stravinsky’s Persephone, was named a CBS Best Choir of the Peninsula in 2013 and has been cited by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of four elite youth choruses in the Bay area.