This year, Gregg Breinberg, the choir leader at PS 22 in Staten Island, N.Y., topped our list of the sexiest men of the year. (Check out the full list here.) So this week, we called him up to talk about his extraordinary work, his role in his kids’ lives — and gave him the big news.
Why has this children’s choir, out of all the children’s choirs in the world, made such a tremendous impact in the past few years?
All of the pieces kind of fit together. I mean, they’re an elementary-school group of 10-year-old kids — public school kids, no less — that are singing in pretty perfect harmony, which is rare, as most parents of children that age know from going to see the school shows and just cringing. They sound really good, they actually execute difficult music and perform legitimate renditions of songs that pay homage to the original but, like any good cover, takes its own direction. And aside from that, just the amount of heart and soul they put into the performances. They put the magic in the music with their emotional delivery, which you don’t really expect from kids their age.
How do you coax that out of them?
At this point, I really don’t even have to coax it out, because the kids have seen the chorus perform before. At the beginning, there was more coaxing — you know, “C’mon guys, you gotta try and feel it!” — but now it’s an issue of making an environment where they feel comfortable enough to express themselves without fear of being ridiculed by peers. That’s something I pride myself in — I create an environment where it’s safe for the kids to explore.
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