Lincoln Center Partners With the Young People's Chorus of New York City to Honor Those Lost To COVID-19

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Young People's Chorus of New York City have partnered to film the children's chorus performing Rodgers & Hammerstein's beautiful classic "You'll Never Walk Alone" outdoors on Lincoln Center's campus to honor those we have lost to the pandemic. The video will be released on Sunday, March 14, the official day of remembrance for COVID-19 victims in New York City, marking the one-year anniversary of the city's first reported virus-related death.

The video will be available for viewing starting at 12 pm ET on Lincoln Center's Facebook and YouTube pages, and on Lincoln Center at Home.

Throughout the pandemic, the YPC's choristers continued to sing, perform, and record, even as their classrooms remained shut. While there have been many reports of children struggling during isolation, YPC choristers used music to express and share messages of hope, fear, sadness, love and joy. Through the universal and unifying powers of music and art, they never walked alone. The YPC and Lincoln Center hope to share this message of hope and shared humanity with the world on this somber anniversary.

Representing youth from all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, the YPC has been a leader in inclusive arts since founder and conductor Francisco Núñez launched the organization more than three decades ago. A son of immigrants from Dominican Republic and Haiti, Núñez grew up in a low-income neighborhood in New York City and did not have the capacity to connect with people outside of his own community. Music was his bridge, and YPC was his way of paying it forward.

Today, the YPC is an internationally renowned program that has enabled its choristers to continue creating music. During the shelter in place, YPC created an online curriculum to reach out to 1,400 children in NYC city schools plus an additional 600 children in its afterschool performance curriculum. YPC singers commissioned and recorded roughly 50 audios and videos, including 15 commissioned works from some of today's most prominent composers, such as David Lang, Paquito D'Rivera and Yuka Honda. This past fall, YPC released Heroes, an album of 10 arrangements and videos honoring New York City's first responders and their service throughout the pandemic.

In addition, YPC produced a two-part holiday variety show in place of their traditional holiday concert, which aired on All Arts as part of the PBS network, where they worked with Tony-award winning lyricist Lynn Ahrens and opera baritone Lester Lynch. YPC also just released a new album on Spotify called Just Songs (Unplugged), including seven songs composed by members of its alumni in response to today's social issues.