World Famous Vienna Boys’ Choir to Visit Penn State’s Eisenhower Auditorium

Penn State hosts a world treasure and a pure holiday treat to start the Christmas season, as the world-famous Vienna Boys’ Choir will present “Christmas in Vienna” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 1, in Eisenhower Auditorium. The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State presentation will feature Austrian folk songs, classical masterpieces and holiday favorites.

The Vienna Boys’ Choir is the modern-day descendant of the boys’ choirs of the Viennese Court, dating back to the late Middle Ages. The ensemble was, for practical purposes, established by a letter from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1498, instructing court officials to employ a singing master, two basses and six boys. Numbering between 14 and 20, the singers were chosen from throughout the empire to provide musical accompaniment for Catholic masses.

Throughout the centuries, the choir has worked with renowned composers, including Mozart, Anton Bruckner, Johann Joseph Fux, Antonio Salieri, Heinrich Isaac, Schubert, Hofhaimer, Biber, Caldara, and Gluck. Before they became celebrated composers, Schubert and Jacobus Gallus were members of the ensemble.

The Wiener Sängerknaben (Vienna Boys’ Choir or Vienna Choir Boys) is a choir of trebles and altos based in Vienna, and is one of the best known boys’ choirs in the world. The boys are selected mainly from Austria, but also from many other countries in Europe plus the United States, Ireland, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.

Ranging in age from 10 to 14, the organization’s 100 choristers are divided into four equal touring ensembles, aptly named after Austrian composers associated with the choir’s history, which include Bruckner, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert. Combined, the four choirs perform about 300 concerts each year before almost 500,000 people. Each group tours for about nine to eleven weeks. This performance at Penn State will feature the Mozart choir, led by choirmaster Bomi Kim.

The 520-year-old Vienna Boys’ Choir, one of the three imperial Austrian musical groups along with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera, has maintained many traditions for centuries. But sometimes even traditions need to give in to the many changes taking place in our society and in the world around us.

In September 2012, Kim was appointed conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir, based on the recommendation of her former professor Erwin Ortner, who was once himself a member of the choir. The selection made Kim the first ever female and the first ever Asian conductor to guide one of the choirs. “It’s definitely a wonderful job, but it’s not so easy because the quality must be good,” she said. “But I think it’s much better for children – I can feel that. I feel like a mother for those kids.”

After graduating from Yon Sei University in Seoul, Korea with a major in concert choir, Kim went to Regensburg in Bavaria to study church music. She then enrolled in the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and earned her master’s degree in choir conducting, vocal music and Gregorian chants. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation on early church Modi, according to her biography.

A doctoral student at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Kim has traveled with the Vienna Boys’ Choir to perform in Japan, China, Arabia and Germany. This is her first tour to the United States with the choir.

“It’s now a very international choir – we have one Japanese boy, one Korean boy, one Irish boy, and one from Australia,” Kim said. “Because we are always on tour, we give auditions everywhere. That’s why we are so international. When a child wants to sing, he can come to me, and we can have an audition. For example, I can give an audition in Pennsylvania – why not?

Included in the program are Claudio Monteverdi’s “Ave Maria,” Franz Schubert’s “Serenade,” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Praise the Lord,” and Aria No. 20 from George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah.” Holiday carols include “Joy to the World,” “Feliz Navidad,” “Jingle Bells” and “O Holy Night.”

“For the first part we will be singing European music by Bach, Mozart, Schubert and others,” Kim said. “And then for the second part we will sing American Christmas songs and European Christmas songs – and often in German.”

With each and every performance, Kim is very animated in her direction, and she always anticipates enthusiasm and participation from the audience. “Every concert is important, and every single audience is important for us,” she said. “We usually plan an encore song, so I expect and want the audience to sing – they must sing with us. They must sing with us really loud.”