Madeleine Choir, school choristers travel to Spain

Intermountain Catholic

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The Madeleine Choir and choristers from the Madeleine Choir School rehearse for their tour of Spain. The singers will spend 10 days walking in the footsteps of great Spanish composers. IC photo by Chris Young

SALT LAKE CITY —  The Choir of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, featuring the choristers of The Madeleine Choir School, embarks on a ten-day performance tour to Spain on November 7, 2008.  The tour includes stops in Segovia, Granada, Seville, Cordoba, and Madrid.

Sixty students from the Choir School, in grades five through eight, will be touring and studying the works of the Spanish Renaissance composers, Francesco Guerrero, Alonso Lobo, and Melchor Robledo.  The students will collaborate with the Segovian children’s choir, Escolania de Segovia, to present a joint concert at the San Juan de los Caballeros Church.  The choristers will also perform at the San Juan de Dios Church in Granada, the Hospital de la Caridad Church in Seville and will conclude the tour with a formal concert at the Cathedral-Magistral de los Santos Niños Justo y Pastor in Madrid.  

The Choir School students will follow in the footsteps of the composers they are studying, singing Mass at cathedrals in Seville and Granada, where the composers worked and performed.

The Madeleine Choir School selects children to participate in one of three choirs and offers an alternate academic and artistic track, Collegium Humanitatis, for students not selected to the choirs.  Teachers, vocal instructors and parent chaperones will accompany the students as they tour, perform, and visit cultural and historic sites they have been studying in Art and History, such as Alhambra and Alcazar.

This is the choristers’ sixth international tour, having completed tours to Rome, Assisi, Florence, Brussels, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. In their short time touring, the choristers have already impressed an international audience with the vocal talents of Utah’s youth.  Their performance in Rome so impressed the archbishop that one of the choristers was asked to cantor the psalm for Sunday Mass at the high altar at St. Peters Basilica in Italian and English, the first child to be allowed to cantor in several decades.

Upon their return, the choristers will present their tour repertoire at their St. Cecilia’s Day Concert, on Saturday, November 22, 2009, at 8 p.m., at the Cathedral of the Madeleine.  The concert will include works from the Spanish composers as well as other favorite choral pieces.

The Madeleine Choir School is a mission of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, serving young people in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade Eight. Modeled after the historic cathedral schools in Europe, the Choir School began in March of 1990 as an after-school choral training program and opened as a full-time academic institution in August, 1996. The Choir School offers a rigorous academic program, strong character formation in Christian values, and activities designed to nurture the whole child. Central to its mission is providing children with the musical skills necessary to become the singers, composers, and instrumentalists of the future. The choristers regularly assist with the worship life of the Cathedral and participate in the Annual Concert Series. The choristers have performed with Ballet West, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the San Francisco Opera, and have been featured in several Utah Symphony & Opera performances.

For more information, please contact Joanna Wheelton at 994-4662.