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“Is Beyoncé Knowles the Beyoncé?”

Dianne Berkun Menaker, the founder and artistic director of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, was referring to an email, apparently from Ms. Knowles, during a staff meeting in 2018 at the organization’s headquarters in Cobble Hill. The email was requesting to license a piece her choir had recorded with Caroline Shaw, a 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner for Music, which would be featured in an upcoming tour with her husband Jay-Z.

“I don’t think I own a Beyoncé album, so the whole thing to me was really funny,” Ms. Berkun Menaker said, recalling the story in May from her office.