The Transcendent Choir of Philadelphia has a clear vision: to create a safe, accessible space that centers visibility, respect, and the elevation of transgender and gender-nonconforming communities within the music world. Their mission also includes removing barriers to artistic engagement by offering affordable or free concerts so anyone can experience a welcoming musical environment, as well as supporting young transgender and gender-nonconforming composers and performers. I spoke with co-founder Maya Kociba as they prepared for their upcoming Dec. 13 concert at The Church of Saint Luke & The Epiphany, Choir Jawn — a show that celebrates Philly’s rich musical history with works entirely by or about local composers, lyricists, poets and historical figures. Some responses have been edited for length or clarity.
I understand that you’re originally from Cincinnati.
Well, I was born in northern Ohio but I consider myself a Cincinnati native. I did elementary through high school there, and I got my degree from the University of Cincinnati at their conservatory there.
What should we know about Cincinnati?
I like to describe it as Philly’s cute younger sibling. It’s really unexpected how much culture is there. I think there’s something inherent about being a river city.
So just like Philly has the Delaware, Cincy is right on the Ohio River. The art scene in Cincinnati is so vibrant. Artists are so supported, musicians especially. It’s a really beautiful city for that reason.
And it has a very small radius downtown, maybe 10 blocks. But the city spans 52 different small neighborhoods. So you could drive for five minutes and be in a totally different cultural environment, based on which neighborhood you’re in. I think all of those things are what Cincinnati and Philadelphia have in common.
And so that’s why, when moving here in 2020, I fell in love with it so quickly, because they do have so many of those really important things in common.
I’m sure. I read that you studied conducting and choral pedagogy. I looked it up and it said you focused on vocal health, rehearsal efficiency and the social and psychological aspects of group singing. That sounds interesting.
Yes, so my degree is in music education. I was certified at home and in New Jersey as well, kindergarten through 12th grade. Over the course of my education, I kind of hyper-specialized on this idea of what a choir is capable of.
I spent two weeks at the Kodály Institute in Hungary. It’s in a teeny, tiny little town called Kecskemét, and the school is the founding place of a specific method of teaching music called the Kodály method. It’s where we get our solfège syllables — do, re, mi, etc. — like from “The Sound of Music.” It’s really fun. I have such a passion for making music and music education as accessible as possible.
I found that this method was the best because one of the founding principles of this method is to pull from the folk tunes of their culture, especially for really young kids. If you’re in Ohio, use American folk tunes so that the kids you’re teaching music to have a connection to their history as well. That’s something that I’m really passionate about. I feel like a choral setting anchors a sense of community into a sense of being connected with the world that you’re in.
Outside of music, what were some of the things that you were into as a kid?
[Laughing] Unfortunately, it’s always been music. I took piano lessons from the time I was five. I was a musical theater nut in high school. I still am. I still enjoy working on musical theater and going to see shows when I can.
But I was also really fascinated with meteorology. There was a not insignificant time when I wanted to be a storm chaser. I loved the idea of getting in the low minivan and chasing after the tornado. I never did well in my science classes, though, so that dream was tabled a long time ago.
What’s a favorite family tradition?
I would say one of my favorite traditions is actually Thanksgiving. My mom is half Italian, half Puerto Rican, and there was a short period of my early childhood when it was just my mom and me, and we were living in her parents’ house. I was young, six or so, but I remember loving being that close to my family.
My grandma’s the oldest of 18, so I never had a shortage of cousins around. Thanksgiving is always a favorite. We don’t ever get all 300 of us anymore, but we always have Puerto Rican rice and beans and homemade Italian gnocchi on the table. Turkey is like an afterthought. We make it because we feel like we have to, but there’s so much better food on the table.
Nice. Fast forward, what brought you here to Philadelphia?
My husband. We met in high school in Cincinnati. He went to Drexel, and I stayed behind in Cincinnati, and I graduated in three-and-a-half years with a teaching degree. He was in an engineering program, and those last a million years. So I was like, I’ll move in and get a teaching job, and we’ll see how that goes.
And then, we just stayed happy. Now, we live across the river in South Jersey, with a cat and a dog, and it’s just worked out.
How did you get involved with a Transcendent Choir of Philadelphia?
I founded it. There was a hole in the community, and I saw that this was a space that could really be something beautiful. With vocal development being such a sensitive topic in the trans community, with hormone replacement therapy and what have you, I was surprised that there wasn’t an active space for nourishing this tool that we have. And this was before I realized that I myself fell under the trans umbrella.
That was an idea that started as a little seed, and I planted it, and then I put it away in the back corners of my brain. I was like, I’m not ready for this. So I kept it away from the sunshine.
My co-founder, Selena Spain-Frank, and I had known each other for a couple of years when I saw something she posted on Facebook saying that Philly needed a trans choir. I could not have sent her a message fast enough. I said, I agree and I have a vision. So we got lunch at Dim Sum Garden in Chinatown, and the rest is history.
So tell me about your queer journey?
Oh my gosh. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t realize that I was anything other than straight until I was 18. I was a real strong ally. I was very passionate that people deserved the right to love who they loved, but it never occurred to me that that would apply internally to me.
So then I did some self-reflection and I met some people with whom I really felt seen, and I was able to come out as pansexual or queer. It was very much like a soft awakening, where there was never a day that I sat my family down and told them. There was never a moment where I shook up the world around me. My arrival was very gentle.
I just realized that a lot of the unnecessary gender roles that are placed upon people made me a little more than uncomfortable because the corner that I was being painted into didn’t apply. It just didn’t fit. And I know I’m never going to be settled. I’m confident that I’m always going to be changing, and I’m excited to meet the newest version of myself on a day-to-day basis.
When was the choir started?
September of last year was the beginning of our first season. Officially, we held some very loose auditions — mostly just a vocal checkup so that I knew what I was working with when choosing repertoire, because I didn’t want to pick a repertoire that was going to be wildly too difficult or juvenile by comparison to people’s experiences.
For our first concert, we had 16 singers, four in each section: soprano, alto, tenor, bass. And for this concert in December, we have over 30 on the roster, so we’ve about doubled in the last year, which is really exciting.
Congratulations! What are some challenges?
One of the decisions that I’ve made that a lot of more traditional choir directors might be a little uncomfortable with is, I let people come and go, switch to different sections as they please. I have one singer who is in three different sections in this upcoming concert. He’s a tenor for most of it, an alto on one song, and a soprano on another one, and I was like, “Yeah, go for it.”
It does make planning a little challenging, because I never know how many people are going to be in each section on any given day. But I think the flexibility — the fact that the door is open — is meaningful because so many people do feel kind of closed in. They are assigned a section, and then that’s where they stay forever. But I just let people scoot around, and it’s a lot of fun.
I love that concept. You also work with kids. What’s the craziest thing about that?
I started working as a general music teacher in a public school classroom, and I found that that was really not my jam, because about 80% of my day was classroom management — just making sure that everyone was sitting where they needed to be, handling the instruments safely, and making sure that they didn’t hit the other kids with them.
I have since pivoted and now I’m on the piano faculty of Settlement Music School, and it’s been such a joy. Working with kids one-on-one has made such a huge difference. My favorite sound in the whole wide world is when they finally get something and they go, “Ooooh.” I can see it click in, all in real time, and that is so much fun. I’m like, that’s why I’m doing this. And it’s just so refreshing.
One of the funniest things was from a kid last week. He’s 10 years old and was working through this piece, and it just wasn’t clicking. And then all of a sudden he goes, “Ah! I figured out what the problem was!” I was like, “What happened?” And he said, “It’s me!” It just tickled me. I love the way that these kids are learning to problem solve.
Another thing that I really love about an individual learning an instrument, as opposed to working in a group or even just watching someone perform, is that over the past few years, with the rise in social media and algorithms and all that, there is this craving for instant gratification. And with piano lessons, it’s not always going to work right away. I love that I get the privilege of watching kids rework those neural pathways in their brain, and they get to kind of figure out what it means to really sit down and figure something out. I love just thinking about the idea of them taking those skills and applying them elsewhere. Warms my little heart.
What did you get from your experience in Hungary?
I think two different things. It was a completely solo trip, and I navigated my way there alone. I flew into Budapest, and I had to navigate their public transit system to get to this tiny town. Hungarian is one of the hardest languages to learn, period, so being in this country, where some of their letters don’t even look like they belong in the English alphabet — and some of them aren’t — having to figure that out was really empowering.
I think the other really fulfilling thing was that it was an international program, so I met educators from all over. But we all performed in a choral concert at the end of the two weeks. We had giant rehearsals with 400 people at a time. And even though there were some people who couldn’t speak English, and some who probably had never heard Hungarian in their life, we all somehow were able to produce a program that could speak to our audience. It was really powerful.
So speaking of programs, tell me a little bit about the event that’s coming up on Dec. 13.
Absolutely. I am really excited about this one. It is a Philly-themed concert, so all of our composers, lyricists and some part of each work that we’re doing is related to Philly in some way. We have a piece that is written by a local composer, Melissa Dunphy, and she took text almost directly from the mouth of Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym.
When Gritty was officially introduced as a mascot in Philadelphia, Helen had this hilarious, poetic statement that she made about how Gritty is terrifying and obsessed with hot dogs, that he’s really unsettling, and his googly eyes look into my soul, but we still love him, and we would still do anything for Gritty. It’s almost madrigal-esque in the way that the parts interact with each other, and it’s just a great, funny piece, so I’m really excited.
We’re also going to be holding a raffle, and the Philadelphia Flyers are sending me an autographed puck. We’ll be selling raffle tickets at the concert all the way up until the last possible moment, and we’re also planning on hosting a food drive. We know that if we ever needed anything, our community would step up for us, so it’s really important that we also give back.
For sure. So who are three celebrities you would like in your choir?
Well, I feel like I would be absolutely lost if I didn’t start by saying Cynthia Erivo. That’s kind of a must. Tituss Burgess and Lady Gaga.
“It’s Too Late” is one of my go-to karaoke songs. What’s yours?
I feel like there’s a lot of eye rolls when I go up there with a musical theater tune. But Chappell Roan’s “Picture You” is a good one. I love a sad song. I’m not a sad person, but for some reason, sad music just really speaks to me a lot more than others.
What instruments do you play?
In college, I learned to make rudimentary sounds on basically any instrument that you’d find in a classical orchestra setting. I am primarily a vocalist and a pianist; those are where my roots are, but I also took cello lessons in college, and if you put a saxophone in my hand, it’s gonna sound marginally better than a middle schooler.
And then I also play ukulele. I also sing with the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, and I gig around various churches in the area. So if someone needs a cantor last minute, or if they need someone to sub in for one of their section leaders, they can give me a call.
Choir Jawn will take place 1-4 p.m. on Dec. 13 at The Church of Saint Luke & The Epiphany, 330 S 13th St. For more information, visit transchoirphilly.org/events.