Date: November 16, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Tinnin Fine Arts Center
Join us for a special performance by the Vienna Boys Choir! Christmas in Vienna showcases gifted child musicians with unforgettable voices in a program featuring Austrian folk songs, classical masterpieces, popular songs, and holiday favorites. This show will be held at 7 p.m. on Saturday, November 16, in the Tinnin Fine Arts Center. Brought to you by the Patrons of the Arts.
Tickets $15. Purchase during normal business hours at Three Rivers College Student Accounts located on the first floor of the Westover Administration building, from 12 – 3 p.m. at the Tinnin Art Gallery, and online at tinnin.ticketleap.com (online fee may be charged). All seats reserved at Tinnin Fine Arts Center. Tickets also sold at the door, as available.
About the Vienna Boys Choir
The Vienna Boys Choir is one of the most famous choirs in the world, and one of the oldest. Boys have been singing at Vienna’s Imperial Chapel since at least 1296. In 1498 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. established a Court Chapel in Vienna where he declared that there were to be boys among the singers, thus laying the foundation for the Vienna Boys Choir. Today, the former imperial ensemble is a private, non-profit organization with a primary and grammar school for 330 boys and girls between the ages of six and nineteen with a focus on choral music and singing. The Vienna Boys Choir’s education, listed by UNESCO as cultural heritage, is open to all, regardless of origin, gender, nationality, or religion.
The four boys’ choirs perform almost 300 concerts per year, with almost half a million people attending. Since 1924, the choirs have completed more than 1000 tours in 100 different countries, clocking up a staggering 29,000 concerts.
On Sundays, the choirs sing mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the men’s chorus of the Vienna State Opera. They have performed with orchestras led by conductors such as Joana Mallwitz, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, and Franz Welser-Möst; and appear at the Salzburg Festival and at the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic.
The Vienna Boys Choir partners with UNICEF and several other charities. In 2023, the Choir celebrated its 525th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Deutsche Grammophon released a live album of the anniversary concert in Vienna’s Musikverein, Decca Classics released a box set of 21 CDs, and Böhlau released a book on the Choir’s history. In 2024, the Vienna Boys Choir and the Vienna Girls Choir jointly received the European Culture Award.
Erasmus Baumgartner has been serving as Artistic Director of the Vienna Boys Choir and the entire Campus Augarten since 2023. The Choir’s President is Erich Arthold.
Selected Acclaim
“[the] mix of purity and lung power, childlike simplicity and mature command of breath control and phrasing, is what this ensemble is all about…” The Washington Post
“Pure and pristine sound…” San Francisco Chronicle
“Their tone is pristine, their dynamics perfectly rendered, but of course it is their youth and pure soprano voices that make them unique.” Charleston Post and Courier
“Presenting a diverse and challenging array of vocal music spanning many centuries, the Vienna Boys’ Choir, under the direction and accompaniment of Oliver Stech, connected emotionally and artistically with Friday’s audience. Their lyricism, diction, and highly refined voices, trained and honed to dizzying standards, soared and sparkled throughout the evening…From walking reverently onstage while singing a gentle Latin a-cappella Gregorian chant and onward toward their final three curtain calls, the world-famous Vienna Boys’ Choir delivered their musical message of peace: music unites; it does not divide…” Colorado Springs Gazette
“There’s something eternal and powerful about the young singers and how they bring such beauty and precision to some of the most important classical music of all time.” Hollywood Soapbox
“Besides the eclectic programming, let’s not forget the sheer wonder of young voices thoroughly trained and ensembles carefully crafted, and all of it performed from memory. It seemed as though nothing could set Carnegie’s vast space ringing like a high, finely-tuned major triad sung in vibratoless straight tone.” New York Classical Review
“the angelic voices of this most famous vocal group are ageless” The Salt Lake Tribune
“a superb musical ensemble…[with] clarion sound” Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Time may march on, but the Vienna Boys Choir remains a rock-solid institution.” The Green Bay Press Gazette
