Vienna Boys Choir to perform at BYU-Idaho

The Vienna Boys Choir will perform at the Hart Auditorium at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg on Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $12 for the general public and $5 for
BYU-Idaho students and may be purchased online at www.byui.edu/tickets or by calling the BYU-Idaho Ticket Office at 496-2230.

Exactly 500 years ago, in 1498, Emperor Maximilian I moved his court and his court musicians from Innsbruck to Vienna, Austria. He gave specific instructions that there were to be six boys among his musicians. For want of a foundation charter, historians have settled on 1498 as the official foundation date of the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and - in consequence - the Vienna Boys Choir. Until 1918, the choir sang exclusively for the imperial court, at mass, at private concerts and functions and on state occasions.

Today there are about 100 choristers between the ages of 10 and 14, divided into four touring choirs. The four choirs give around 300 concerts and performances each year in front of almost half a million people. Each troup spends 9 to 11 weeks of the school year on tour. They visit virtually all European countries, and they are frequent guests in Asia, Australia and the Americas.

The choir's repertoire includes everything from medieval to contemporary and experimental music. Motets and lieder for boys' choir form the core of the touring repertoire, as do the choir's own arrangements of waltzes and polkas by Strauss.