After the January earthquake that devastated the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, Pearse Lyons went to Haiti to see how he could help. He decided to set up a factory in the north of the country. Along with that, he wanted to help the school, and hearing the children sing inspired him to bring in University of Kentucky voice professor Everett McCorvey.
The idea was to start a music program at the school using UK students as teachers, with the aim of creating a choir that would perform during the World Equestrian Games and events beyond that.
24 Haitian children between ages 6 and 12, walking onto the stage past a 100-piece symphony orchestra, behind tenor Gregory Turay who, standing in for Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, had filled the outdoor stadium at the Kentucky Horse Park with his rendition of The Impossible Dream.
“I leaned in to listen to them, and some of them weren’t singing,” said Alltech global aquaculture director Jorge Arias. “They were just … .” Arias dropped his jaw and looked around wide-eyed. In Haiti, they study in a four-room school with no electricity or running water on a cratered street in the center of the city.
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