The choir is at once a unified collective and highly stratified ensemble, as its structure requires the organization and constant reconfiguration of vocal parts to create harmony. A conductor or choirmaster decides upon music to sing, leads rehearsals, and conducts the singers at every step from practice to performance.
The conductor decides whether the choristers will be accompanied by instruments in performance or sing unaccompanied (also known as a capella)—decisions that he or she will make on a piece-by-piece basis, and sometimes in accordance with specifications of genre or the performance venue, such as a church hall with an organ or a concert hall with an orchestra.
As the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys choir features the voices of young men in high school, the choir’s music ostensibly may be arranged for male voices from the higher-registered tenors to the mid-range baritones and the low basses. These divisions can be broken down into further parts, such as tenor I and II, necessitated by particular musical arrangements requiring a greater and more specified range. Soloists can also break away from their sections and lead the choir in a round, or in the call and response style typical of the gospel songs featured in Choir Boy.
Each section in the Drew choir would commonly have a leader who is responsible for his fellow singers in the division. This role not only serves pragmatic purposes, including attendance taking and rehearsal leading in the conductor’s absence, but also has the aim of fostering a sense of brotherhood and peer accountability. Whether or not that sense of fellowship is attained is not only the greater question of the choir’s structure within this play—as Pharus jockeys for power and the boys struggle for prominent choir positions—but also reflects Choir Boy’s examination of individual relationships.
—Alexandra Kennedy