The Madeleine Choir School plans a choral tour of San Francisco

Courtesy photo/Kristan Jacobsen

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Madeleine Choir School choristers prepare for their upcoming tour in San Francisco. The students will also participate in an enhanced curriculum. 

SALT LAKE CITY — The Choir of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, featuring the choristers of the Madeleine Choir School, will travel to the San Francisco Bay Area to perform Feb. 10-13. The Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City, will accompany them on this tour.

In San Francisco, the choirs will perform at Saint Stephens Episcopal Church in Tiburon, Calif., on Feb. 10. They will sing for a Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the Light (the Oakland Cathedral) on Feb. 11. On Feb. 12, they will sing during the Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco, where Bishop Wester will concelebrate the Mass.

"I’m looking forward to hearing the choir sing," Bishop Wester said, adding that he will already be in San Francisco attending a meeting of the Western Province bishops. "This is a good opportunity for other churches to experience the beauty of the Cathedral of the Madeleine School choir, and for them to bring their beautiful music and worship of God to other churches and the cathedral. It’s also a good opportunity for the children as well because they can see different parts of the country and different churches. This experience will give them a sense of the universality of the Church. I’m delighted for that and for the people who will get to hear them."

The San Francisco tour will be the choir’s fourth in the United States; previously they toured in Los Angeles, Seattle and southern Utah, said Joanna Wheelton, Madeleine Choir School advancement director.

The choirs have also performed on seven international tours, of which four have been in Italy, one in Paris, Brussels and Aachen, another in Germany and Austria and one in Spain.

On the international tours, the choristers have performed for standing-room only crowds, said Andrea Steenburgh, a Madeleine Choir School parent. "I was delighted to see the choir has made such an impression on the people in Europe," she said. "The choristers are so well prepared for these tours, not just musically, but also educationally. They study the regions they are going to visit, and I have been so impressed with what they retain. They have been very grateful to go on these tours, remember them and talk about them. I don’t think they are too young for these experiences."

The Choristers’ upcoming international tour will be to Leipzig-Dresden, Prague and Vienna.

"The tours are beneficial for the children’s musical growth," Steenburgh said.

"The tours help them build self-confidence, experience in performing and maturity that comes from performing in front of an audience," said Wheelton. "It also gives them an opportunity to be honored and to take the amazing mission of the Madeleine Choir School to other Catholic communities."

In addition to performing in San Francisco, the students will participate in an enhanced curriculum. "They will go to the Natural History Museum, the Leonardo and on an outdoor field trip through the Muir Woods National Monument, in which ski rangers will lead them in hands-on water shed science lab experiments," Wheelton said. "The California Academy of Sciences Planetarium show is also something they will see."

Steenburgh’s son is in the eighth grade, so this is her last opportunity to tour with the choristers. "I went to college in the Bay Area, and I am hoping some of my friends will come to hear them," she said. "This will give me an opportunity to show others what my kids do. Other parents who will be traveling with the group also have friends in the area that they have invited to the performances."