You can’t talk about One Voice Children’s Choir without starting with the founder, Masa Fukuda. Masa was a child prodigy in music and composed his first piano song at age 4. In his culture in Japan, he was to take over his father’s dental practice as the only son, but his wise father saw he was extremely gifted and needed to pursue music. Masa came to BYU and in 2002 he won a contest for writing music for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He and a friend gathered 1,621 elementary school students to help him make the commemorative CD “Light Up The Land.”
Masa and the children worked so hard to prepare for the Olympics and after it was over, they had no desire to break apart the idea of children singing with such power, light and energy. And so, One Voice Children’s Choir was born.
One Voice Children’s Choir is comprised of children ages four through eighteen living along the Wasatch Front in the United States. One Voice Children’s Choir has grown into a unique force in the entertainment world: Quarter-finalist on NBC’s America’s Got Talent Season 9, performing at the White House, touring in a number of countries and across the United States and most recently hitting number one on the Billboard Kid Album chart. With 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube, One Voice Children’s Choir has become a household name for dynamic original arrangements of popular music. The group’s music has been picked up by HBO, Nickelodeon, Netflix, The Today Show, PBS, and radio stations and playlists around the world. One Voice Children’s Choir is part of One Voice Children 501c3, a nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire the world through the power of children’s voices.
Not every member of the choir is a Latter-day Saint, and, in fact, their mission is to “represent and include children from across the scope of our global community. We are committed to creating an environment where every child, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, religion, circumstance, or identity can join us in inspiring the world and using their voices for good.”
Maurine and I know this choir very well as we have grandchildren in the current group and in the past performing with them. We love this choir. We love Masa and his vision for the children. He wants children of all ages (4-18) feel comfortable performing on stage and expressing their talents with joy.
Many of their YouTube Videos have over 100 million views. I chose to highlight just one of their videos called Chosen Family which only has 1 million views. I love the message and I love the setting and we love these children! Enjoy this amazing group.
