Overview:
Robyn Lana, founder of the Cincinnati Youth Choir, will retire at the end of the 2024-2025 season. Lana, a leading children's and youth choir conductor, has led the choir for over 40 years and has seen it grow into one of the most renowned youth choral programs in the US. The choir's partnership with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music has provided opportunities for students to develop their skills. Lana will continue teaching at Miami University and will leave a lasting legacy in Cincinnati's musical organizations.
By Kathleen Riemenschneider
Executive Director
The Cincinnati Youth Choir, Ensemble in Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), has announced that founder Robyn Lana will conclude her outstanding career with the Cincinnati Youth Choir (CYC) at the conclusion of the 2024-2025 season, after which she will be named Director Emerita and will continue to lead and engage the alumni choir and network.
Recognized as one of the leading children’s and youth choir conductors in the United States, Robyn Lana has actively worked with choruses ranging from children to adult for more than 40 years. Lana began CYC in 1993 with a small 35-voice ensemble. The program has blossomed into one of the most revered youth choral programs in the USA currently serving nearly 1000 singers each year. Beginning as an independent program, Lana collaborated with Dr. Earl Rivers in 2001 to bring CYC into the fold of the University of Cincinnati where the program was enhanced by the unmatched artistry and reputation of the College-Conservatory of Music. CYC has continued to grow while serving as the resident children’s choir for all of CCM’s choral, orchestral, and operatic works and offering internships and assistantships to choral and music education students.
Dr. Rivers, now a professor emeritus of conducting at CCM, venerated this partnership as an example for others to follow. “Robyn Lana created and developed the Cincinnati Youth Choir into a world-class organization that over 30 years has nurtured hundreds of greater Cincinnati children and youth in developing their musical, intellectual and social skills. The CYC’s relationship with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) as ‘Ensemble-in-Residence at CCM’ is a nationally unique partnership between an all-city Youth Choir and an internationally recognized Conservatory of Music. This partnership has become the gold standard role model for other youth choir organizations, and it has allowed several generations of CCM choral, music education, and voice students to develop their skills by engaging with the CYC as conductors, assistant conductors, accompanists, mentors, and administrators. Robyn’s legacy will have left Cincinnati with a crown jewel in the pantheon of Cincinnati’s outstanding musical organizations.”
Lana will continue to teach in the Miami University (Oxford, OH) Department of Music where she began in August 2022. Prior to teaching at Miami, she taught choral music education and women’s choir at Xavier University and was honored to teach at her alma mater, CCM for a semester in 2017.