Harlem Boys Choir

The Boys Choir of Harlem began in the basement of the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church in nineteen sixty-eight. Its founder, Walter Turnbull, was a former opera singer who moved to New York from Mississippi and started the program to provide inner-city children with musical discipline and educational opportunities. He drew on his own experience working in the fields of the rural South to emphasize hard work and self-respect, believing that music served as a powerful tool to focus young minds and help them succeed in school and life.