Vienna Boys' Choir

I've had some comments and emails saying that the report in the British Newspaper "The Daily Express" is wrong. All I can say is Thank God or should that be Gott Sei Dank! It would have been awful if it had been true.

Larry on his blog sangerknaben says that The WSK management are saying it is not true - but as he says "Let's hope that they aren't stonewalling us".

Talking about his blog - it's well worth a visit. Cheers Larry and all the others who wrote.

Vienna Boys? Choir. Shock

This was in the paper yesterday. I am shocked, because now it is not special for boys they won't bother. That is what happened in the UK. Girls are allowed in and the boys go off to football instead because singing becomes a thing anyone can do. If someone says "oh singing is girly" then the boys give up. If a boys choir is only boys then it can't be girly - its a boys thing. The Vienna Boys' Choir school let girls in in 1997 I think, but said they would only be in the school NEVER the choir. I wonder what they will be called now.....

Anyway here is the press article

ONE of the last bastions of male domination in the west may be about to disappear forever. The world-famous Vienna Boys Choir has admitted it can no longer get enough male recruits. And so, after 400 years, the choir is finally set to open its doors to female singers.

The boys in the choir live at the imposing Palais Augarten boarding school and are all individually interviewed before being accepted for a place. Many famous composers have worked with the choral group, including Mozart, Hofhaimer and Bruckner, and the choir perform nearly 300 concerts each year in front of a staggering 500,000 people. But the pressure of not having enough regular recruits has finally told.

It comes just months after the Austrian Times reported that Vienna’s Spanish Riding School has also lifted its 436-year-old men-only tradition.

RIP Vienna Boys' Choir

St. Petersburg Boys Choir

The St. Petersburg Boys' Choir (Хор мальчиков Санкт-Петербурга) was founded in 1992. St. Petersburg is an ancient Russian city on the Baltic which was called Leningrad between 1924 and 1991. Before that it was called Petrograd and before that St. Petersburg!

Over ten years the choir grew into a huge outfit which became a music school teaching 400 boys. Teaching starts at the age of four and by age ten you can join the Chorus and there you stay until your voice breaks, whatever age, at which point you get more voice training to join the ranks of tenor or bass.

I always talk about the choir uniform so here goes. They wear a short black jacket and a very wide collared white shirt. The shirt also has huge cuffs.


The Soprano boys wear the wide collared shirts and the Tenors and Basses wear the Suits and Ties.

The choir is constantly busy, performing in over 80 concerts a year












The school makes learning music and music theory fun. Musical instruments can also be learned











The choir has recorded 5 Compact Discs and regularly appears on television




They tour a lot, having visited Holland, Switzerland and France and they give concerts in the major cities of Germany every year.






On top of all that they even get time for fun and free time as part of a great group








Who ever heard of a choir singing in a swimming pool? I bet the acoustics are fab!





I still think the boys' choirs outside Britain have got it right. You sing soprano until your voice changes and you don't get moved on at the age of 13. You can tell one or two of the boys in this choir are still singing soprano way beyond 13. Good on them - keep it up.



Oh yeah... I don't know what the young Pavarotti lookalike did but the expressions of some of the faces of the front row tell me it wasn't that nice!

Sorry it's been so long

Yeah yeah I know. It's been a long time. Well we had summer holidays to get out of the way and now I'm back at school and it's busy. I will get round to another update. Keep watching.....

Hows this for a uniform?

The Mozart Knabenchor has had quite a few names over the years but they are all around the name of the famous composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The choir was founded in 1956 on the date of Mozart's 200th birthday and they were called Mozart Sängerknaben. The choir was re-founded in 1995 as Amadeus Knabenchor Wien (Amadeus Boys Choir of Vienna). In 2006 on the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birthday they changed their name again and are now called the Mozart Knabenchor.




When the boys' voices finally change some of them sing in the lower parts. When the boys are wearing the Mozart styled uniform you can see the lower voices are wearing the Red Waistcoat style uniform


The choir is busy, even though the famous Vienna Boys' Choir is just down the road snapping up all the engagements. They make recordings, have appeared on TV and often go on tours. I would think the uniform is quite a selling point!




Even in stockings and a wig - you can still have fun









Tours have taken them to places like Assisi in Italy, Warsaw in Poland, Egypt and Germany. These pictures show that they don't always have their wigs on either











They also have free time and outings as part of choir life