LEWISBURG - The Vienna Boys Choir will present a family friendly holiday show at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Weis Center for the Performing Arts at Bucknell University. Limited tickets are available.
The Vienna Boys Choir is a group of trebles and altos based in Vienna. Today, there are about 100 young singers between the ages of 10 and 14, divided into four touring choirs.
The choir's repertoire includes everything from medieval to contemporary and experimental music, plus holiday classics, and is an ideal concert for adults and kids alike.
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The Vienna Boys Choir will present a family-friendly holiday show at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Weis Center for the Performing Arts at Bucknell University, Lewisburg.
The program will include contemporary songs by artists such as Billy Joel and Freddy Mercury, sacred carols and holidays classics like "Noel," "Jingle Bells," "Oh Come Little Children" and "O Come All Ye Faithful" as well as music from Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven and Haydn.
"The Vienna Boys Choir continues to delight audiences across the globe with their purity of tone, distinctive charm and a diverse, crowd-pleasing repertoire that encompasses Austrian folk songs and waltzes, classical masterpieces, beloved pop songs, holiday favorites and medieval chant," said Kathryn Maguet, executive director of the Weis Center.
Boys have been singing at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor since the early 15th century. In 1498, more than half a millennium ago, Emperor Maximilian I moved his court and his court musicians to Vienna. He gave instructions that there were to be six singing boys among his musicians.
Fact Box
What: Vienna Boys Choir
Where: Weis Center for the
Performing Arts, Bucknell University.
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Historians have settled on 1498 as the 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.
Musicians like Heinrich Isaac, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Joseph Fux, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Salieri and Anton Bruckner worked with the choir. Composers Jacobus Gallus and Franz Schubert were themselves choristers. Brothers Joseph and Michael Haydn, members of the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral, frequently sang with the imperial boys' choir.
Limited tickets are available and are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and $15 for youth. Tickets can be ordered by calling 577-1000 or online at www.bucknell.edu/Box Office.
The next event in the Weis Center's series is a free kids' show by the Paper Bag Players at 1 p.m. Dec. 15. The Paper Bag Players is a company of adults who create and perform original, contemporary, musical theater for children ages 4 through 8.
For more information about future programming at the Weis Center for the Performing Arts, go to www.facebook. com/WeisCenter or www.bucknell.edu/
WeisCenter.
