Your Chicago: Chicago Children's Choir

(CBS) -- They are an elite group of singers who come from all over Chicago and have brought joy to thousands of music lovers for decades.

CBS 2's Rob Johnson reports on the Chicago Children's Choir.

The Beverly Neighborhood Choir is one of nine community choirs in the city that is part of the Chicago Children's Choir network. It's been giving kids aged eight to eighteen a voice for nearly 60 years.

Choral director Judy Hanson has been with the CCC for 13 of them.

"We feel rhythm and beat and harmony and melody within us, and so it reminds people that we're all the same on the inside," she says.

The Children's Choir was initially conceived during the civil-rights movement to bring together kids from neighborhoods all over Chicago. Now, the choir's top performing ensemble is known as the Voice of Chicago.

Competition is fierce, and Hanson is painstaking when it comes to melodic precision.

How many places in Chicago could bring together senior Daniella Pruitt from Jones College Prep and Andrew Goldblatt, a junior from Lincoln Park High?

"It's amazing to come together with a group of people my age and to be able to do something that means something today and provides such an awesome purpose," he says.

These teens have plenty of purpose. Some will pursue singing careers.

"I want the music to be that vehicle which taught them how to understand themselves here and understand one another," Hanson says.

The Chicago Children's Choir is performing at Ravinia Saturday.

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