AUBURN GRESHAM — When most singers perform in front of Simon Cowell, they’re filled with trepidation.

But Kristol Bell, a junior at Leo High School in Auburn Gresham, walked onto the “America’s Got Talent” stage with confidence.

“It wasn’t really surprising, but I was happy though,” the teen said of Cowell’s thumbs-up after Bell’s high school choir sang in front of the famously critical Brit and the show’s three other celebrity judges in March. Their performance aired on NBC in June.

“It was a surprise to everybody else, but it wasn’t really surprising to me, because I knew he was gonna like it,” Bell said.

Cowell, best known as the incisive and sharp-tongued judge on “American Idol,” had nothing but praise for Leo High School’s choir after they delivered a thundering rendition of The Score’s “Born for This.”

“I can imagine this as a Broadway show,” Cowell told the boys after their performance. “It was so powerful what you just did. The song was brilliant, the arrangement was amazing, the performance was incredible and it was really worth your while.”

 

 Members of the Leo Catholic High School choir pose for a photo on Monday, June 30, 2025. The choir recently inspired the crowd with their performance of “Born for This” by The Score on America’s Got Talent 2025. Credit: Peyton Reich for Block Club Chicago

 The Leo High School Choir, a group of 22 students from the all-boys Catholic high school on the South Side, seems born for this moment. Their first taste of fame came in 2024 when they appeared on a CBS Chicago segment. That drew the attention of “America’s Got Talent” producers, who flew them out to California this spring.

The choir has been booked and busy all summer, appearing at a Mass for Pope Leo XIV at Guaranteed Rate Field and at Wrigley Field for a Juneteenth celebration. Yolanda Sandifer-Horton, Leo High School’s coordinator of community partnerships and student engagement, said the choir has averaged 60 performances each year for the last two years.

 

 Yolanda Sandifer-Horton, coordinator of community partnerships, student engagement and college persistence, and members of the Leo Catholic High School choir pose for a photo on Monday, June 30, 2025. The choir recently inspired the crowd with their performance of “Born for This” by The Score on America’s Got Talent 2025. Credit: Peyton Reich for Block Club Chicago

In August, the choir will head back to “America’s Got Talent” for the quarterfinals. That’s when voters will decide whether they’ll move ahead or one of the judges will press the golden buzzer, which allows them to skip to the final round.

The national exposure the choir has received is proving to be a blessing. After one of the choir’s members, Ian Dunn, told the judges that he would use his prize money for college, a donor from Chicago gave the 22 boys $5,000 each to use toward school.

Leo High School President Dan McGrath, himself a 1968 Leo graduate, said the choir’s appearance on “America’s Got Talent” has garnered over $5,000 in donations from alumni. Nearly every donation check or email was accompanied by a note congratulating the choir, McGrath said.

For Bell, singing in front of “America’s Got Talent” judges, specifically Cowell, fulfilled a childhood dream, he told Block Club.

“Oh I love that guy,” Bell said. “He’s straight-up honest with you and he’ll tell you the honest truth. People think he’s very harsh, but he’s still the same way he’s always been. He’s nice but expects better from you, and that’s just like Miss Hill.”

Bell was referring to the choir’s director, LaDonna Hill. The enthusiastic and multitalented musician is retiring this year after serving as Leo’s music director for 25 years. In the choir’s “America’s Got Talent” performance, you can see Hill dressed in the school’s bright orange colors, conducting the singers and urging them on with expressive eyes.

Josue Rios graduated from Leo this spring and will attend Clark Atlanta University as a freshman in the fall. Confident and talkative, Rios credits Hill for helping him break out of his shell as a transfer student.

“She is part of the reason why I am the way I am now, because originally I would not be speaking right now, if I’m being 100 percent honest,” Rios said. “Miss Hill brings that part of yourself out of you to make you feel more confident about yourself, to push you more because she knows that you can be better. She is a very strict and stern teacher, but at the end of everything, we do laugh, we have a great time with each other, we create a lot of memories.”

Rios and his fellow singers have also learned the importance of time management. The choir typically meets for 1 hour and 40 minute rehearsals six times a week, Hill told Block Club.

“That’s really the message I want to get out, that with hard work, determination and discipline … and with God, all things are possible,” Hill said. “Even my students, they believe that as well, so it’s inspiring to be a part of.”

 

 Members of the Leo Catholic High School choir pose for a photo on Monday, June 30, 2025. The choir recently inspired the crowd with their performance of “Born for This” by The Score on America’s Got Talent 2025. Credit: Peyton Reich for Block Club Chicago.

The choir’s success is more impressive when you realize Hill often takes on boys with little to no musical experience. She doesn’t require them to audition, instead refining their abilities through hours of practice, she said.

That grit is emblematic of a school that has gone through demographic changes over the decades but remains true to its working-class South Side roots.

“We’re very big on ‘moving on up.’ By going to Leo, you’re going to have an opportunity to go to college, or you’re gonna have an opportunity to get into the building trades,” McGrath said. “We’re a working-class school, but we’re also a school of opportunity. So a young man who comes to Leo is most definitely going to have the opportunity to better himself and make a nice life, have a career, have a family.”

In 2026, the all-boys Catholic high school will celebrate its centennial anniversary. That 100-year mark did not always look certain, as the school struggled with shrinking enrollment and watched its peer Catholic institutions shut their doors for good.

Today, the school’s enrollment stands at 270, with students coming from 26 zip codes across Chicago and its suburbs. Every one of Leo’s students receives some form of financial assistance and the school relies on private donors, as well as its alumni association, to help offset tuition costs, Sandifer-Horton said.

At the time McGrath attended Leo, the surrounding neighborhood was switching from predominantly Irish, Italians and Germans to more Black residents. The Irish Christian brothers, a Catholic congregation of lay men, made up the majority of Leo’s teachers. The brothers followed the more traditional culture of a pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, wielding strict discipline with their students.

 

 Yolanda Sandifer-Horton, coordinator of community partnerships, student engagement and college persistence, and members of the Leo Catholic High School choir pose for a photo on Monday, June 30, 2025. The choir recently inspired the crowd with their performance of “Born for This” by The Score on America’s Got Talent 2025. Credit: Peyton Reich for Block Club Chicago

That culture and leadership style has changed at Leo, as another of its alumni has taken the helm. Ask the choir boys about Principal Shaka Rawls and you’ll elicit a burst of laughter but also respect.

The students describe Rawls as both a father-figure and hype man, and they joke that he can’t sing with them. Just after defending his dissertation for his doctoral degree in Urban Educational Policy from the University of Illinois-Chicago, Rawls accompanied the boys to California for their “America’s Got Talent” appearance.

“Normally, you look at a principal and think, ‘Oh yeah, they’re just in the back of the office typing up some paperwork trying to just get the school by,’ but he’s in the classrooms, he’s talking to students one-on-one, he is making sure everybody’s good,” said Steven Jackson, a senior in the choir. “Yeah, sure, he’s a strong authority-like figure, but he can also be a decent comfort person to let you know or critique you or to hype you up when you’re going through something or to talk to you personally to help you through something. So I feel like that’s a very different dynamic, especially with the choir.”

 

 Members of the Leo Catholic High School choir pose for a photo on Monday, June 30, 2025. The choir recently inspired the crowd with their performance of “Born for This” by The Score on America’s Got Talent 2025. Credit: Peyton Reich for Block Club Chicago

The feeling is mutual, said Rawls.

“Those are my sons. Some of them have fathers, some of them don’t, but those are my sons, those are my boys. They all have access to me, unfortunately, 24/7, and they take advantage of that, that’s for sure,” Rawls said. “I don’t mind, but they’ll call me whether they need driver’s ed information or they need me to talk to their parents for them or any needs that they have.”

In Chicago, the singing group is often introduced as “the world-renowned Leo choir.” Once they return from “America’s Got Talent” in August, Sandifer-Horton said their goal is to embark on an international tour.

Though Sandifer-Horton would like to go to Africa and some of the boys have their eyes on the Caribbean, Rawls has his eye on a holier site.

“My goal is to get these boys to the Vatican very soon. I have no doubt that I’m going to pull that off,” Rawls said. “It’s a natural fit. We have a choir that’s world-renowned. We have a pope from the city where the choir is world-renowned, right? All I need is the funding and I’ll book the tickets.”