Vienna Boys Choir

VIENNA BOYS CHOIR
The Vienna Boys Choir is one of the most famous choirs in the world, and one of its oldest; boys have been singing at Vienna’s Imperial Chapel at least since 1296. Two hundred years later, on July 7, 1498, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I established a Court Chapel in Vienna. He gave specific instructions that there were to be boys among the singers, thus laying the foundation for the Vienna Boys Choir. Like their modern successors, the early choristers spent much time on the road, following their imperial employer to sing at the Holy Roman Empire’s parliamentary meetings, imperial coronations, weddings, state processions, and feasts.

Over the centuries, the Viennese court attracted musical geniuses like Heinrich Isaac, Johann Joseph Fux, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Composers Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, and Franz Schubert sang as boys with the choir; Anton Bruckner gave them singing and piano lessons.

Today, the former imperial ensemble has grown into an entire campus; the modern Vienna Boys Choir is a private, nonprofit organization that funds itself chiefly through income generated from concerts and touring, as well as donations and sponsorships. The Vienna Boys Choir maintains a primary school and a grammar school whose syllabuses focus on choral music and singing. 330 boys and girls between the ages of six and 19 attend the schools on campus. All students have individual voice lessons and all sing in one of the choirs. In addition to the four famous boys’ choirs, there is a female counterpart—the Vienna Girls Choir (Wiener Chormädchen) for girls aged 10 to 14; the Chorus Primus, a mixed children’s chorus comprised of all boys and girls enrolled in the 4th grade of the choir’s primary school; and the Chorus Juventus, the mixed youth choir of the Senior High School. The Vienna Boys Choir’s education, listed by UNESCO as cultural heritage, is open to all, regardless of origin, gender, nationality, or religion.

There are currently 90 active boy choristers, divided into four boys’ choirs, which all perform as the Vienna Boys Choir: the Brucknerchor (Choirmaster Manolo Cagnin), the Haydnchor (Choirmaster Jimmy Chiang), the Mozartchor (Choirmaster Manuel Huber), and the Schubertchor (Choirmaster Oliver Stech). The four groups share concerts, tours, sound recordings, and filming equally. Between them, they perform almost 300 concerts per year, with almost half a million people attending. Since 1924, the singers have completed more than 1,000 tours in 100 different countries, clocking up a staggering 29,000 concerts.

On Sundays, the choirs take turns singing mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel, joining forces with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the men’s chorus of the Vienna State Opera. The singers frequently participate in large-scale symphonic concerts, performing under conductors including Joana Mallwitz, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, and Franz Welser-Möst. Other highlights in the calendar include appearances at the Salzburg Festival and at the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic.

The Vienna Boys Choir cooperates with several other charities, such as UNICEF, “Licht ins Dunkel” (“Light into Darkness,” an Austrian charity), and Die Möwe, a child protection agency. Together with Caritas and the Vienna Konzerthaus, the choirs created Superar, an outreach program offering children access to free music education. In addition, the Vienna Boys Choir runs Chorus Amabilis, a choir for adult singing enthusiasts aimed particularly at pensioners.

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 featuring the choir’s landmark recordings, and the academic publishing house Böhlau released a book on the choir’s rich history. In 2024, the Vienna Boys Choir and the Vienna Girls Choir jointly received the European Culture Award.

Erasmus Baumgartner was appointed Artistic Director of the Vienna Boys Choir in the fall of 2023.