Hearing the angelic voices of a children's choir echoing through the stone arches of Salt Lake City's Cathedral of the Madeleine can take listeners on an imaginary journey to the great cathedrals of the European Renaissance.
The next time the 60 choristers of the Madeleine Choir School perform in the cathedral, listeners won't have to imagine. As this story is being written, the young singers are traveling in Spain -- performing music of the Spanish Renaissance in the cathedrals where it originated. Tour stops include the cities of Segovia, Granada, Seville and Madrid.
After returning home, the singers will reprise their tour repertoire at a concert honoring St. Cecilia's Day, patron saint of music, Nov. 22 at Cathedral of the Madeleine. Choral works by little-known Spanish composers such as Alonso Lobo, Melchor Robledo and Francisco Guerrero will be heard on a program that also features music of Rachmaninoff, Bruckner, Britten and others.
The touring choir comprises choristers in grades 5 through 8 at Madeleine Choir School, a private Catholic school that also accepts nonsinging students into a program called Collegium. The Choir School, one of few schools of its kind in the United States, is modeled on choir schools in England. Its choristers are becoming well-known in the U.S. and abroad for their beautiful singing and excellent musicianship.
All students in the school's fourth through eighth grades studied Spain's history, geography, art and architecture in preparation for the tour, said Principal Christina Viera-McGill. Collegium students created a timeline of the trip, with geographical and historical information about each stop. The colorful document was mounted in the school's cafeteria so students could follow the day-to-day progress of the tour group.
Viera-McGill said the group is traveling with guides prepared to discuss sites along the way in greater depth than most young tour groups would require. "Our students come a little more highly prepared academically, so they ask good questions when they finally see these things they have been studying for so long," she said.
This is the sixth international tour the choir school has taken since its inception in 1990. Previous tours took choristers to Italy, Germany, France, Austria and Belgium, where they followed in the footsteps of composers they were studying at the time. During this year's Spanish tour, the choir is doing likewise, singing Mass at cathedrals in Seville and Granada where Lobo, Guerrero and Robledo lived and worked.
Besides visiting and singing in centuries-old cathedrals, the students will tour such sites as Segovia's Roman aqueduct and castle, and the Alhambra, a fortress-palace built by Spain's Moorish rulers during the 16th century.
Members of the cathedral's adult choir traveled with the choir school group, as did some parents. Parents who stayed home were told not to expect phone calls or e-mails from their children. "We're encouraged not to have contact during the trip," said Patty Huber, whose 11-year-old son, Ian, is on the tour. "They do better with homesickness that way."
Huber said her whole family became involved in Ian's pre-tour study of Spain, learning about geography and history, and establishing an e-mail correspondence with a family in Seville.
"Ian learned that kids are pretty similar everywhere," Huber said, but he was told he will probably eat later than he's used to, a reference to the Spanish tradition of midafternoon lunches and late suppers.
The St. Cecilia's Day concert will have special meaning for Huber. She expects to be moved by the music, but in a particular way common to mothers whose far-flung children return home safely. "I'm the emotional type of mother, so I'll probably cry," she said. "Then I'll be so proud of the fact that the opportunity was given to [Ian] to be able to do this at such an impressionable age."
