Heavenly voices

It’s going to sound a bit like heaven when the Vienna Boys’ Choir and the Loboc Children’s Choir join up in a concert on November 9 at the Aliw Theater.

Both internationally acclaimed and both crowd and critic favorites, the two choirs are singing in order to make even more music: The concert will benefit the Orchestra Instruments Fund of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, to enable our national orchestra to replace instruments that are old and–in some cases–in desperate state. From past fund-raising efforts such as the David Benoit concert in October last year, the orchestra bought a new tuba. Proceeds from this concert will be for a new French horn.

Concert chair and Cultural Center of the Philippines trustee Nedy Tantoco has been indefatigable in championing the cause of the orchestra. Aside from tirelessly and valiantly raising funds for the instruments fund, she arranged for the orchestra’s successful European tour last year.

Getting these two children’s choirs together is quite a feat–and a real treat for Manila audiences.

The Loboc choir started as the glee club of the Loboc Elementary School in Bohol, which used to be famous for the chocolate hills, the tarsier, kalamay hati and peanut kisses. Now, fortunately, the choir is up there in the list of what Bohol is known for and proud about.

The glee club, composed of students from eight to 14 years of age, used to sing for school activities and town fiestas. In 1980, they became "official", joining the National Music Competitions for Young Artists (namcya), winning in regional competitions for children’s choir but coming in third on the national level. They went back to Bohol undaunted, practised their little hearts out and, in 1993, won the national championship. That was the start of good things indeed for the kids from Bohol.

They repeated the victory in 1995, and the following year went on a provincial and then a national tour, both to great acclaim. The kids spent Christmas 1996 in the United States, on a three-month, 12-city tour there, called "On Angels’ Wings: From Bohol to the World".

In August 2000, the choir represented the country at the International Children’s Culture and Art Festival in Tianjin, China. They also performed at the Philippine Embassy in Beijing and for the Filipino Migrant Workers Community in Hong Kong. Last year they took their music to Europe in another successful tour.

The Loboc Children’s Choir has for the last 24 years been lovingly nurtured by conductor and music director Alma Fernando Taldo.

Half a world and half a millennium away, what is today the Vienna Boys’ Choir began as court musicians for Emperor Maximilian I, who gave specific instructions that there were to be six boys among the musicians. They sang exclusively for the court, at mass, at private concerts and on state occasions. Mozart, Salieri, Schubert and Haydn were some of the musicians who worked with the choir.

In 1918, after the breakdown of the Hapsburg empire, the boys’ choir was almost silenced, but for Josef Schnitt, who became dean of the Imperial Chapel in 1921. He established the choir as a private institution, changed their uniform (from the old cadet’s uniform to the trademark sailor suit, then all the rage) and their name to Wiener Sangerknaben or Vienna Boys’ Choir.

Today there are around 100 choristers aged ten to 14 divided into four touring choirs, who perform all over Austria and Europe and often in Asia, Australia and the Americas. They still sing at Sunday mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel every week as they have done since 1498.

From the historic Loboc Church in Bohol to the grand Imperial Chapel in Vienna, audiences will get to experience music of a different timber, an experience not likely to be repeated anytime soon.

* * *

The Vienna Boys’ Choir and the Loboc Children’s Choir will perform on November 9 at 8 pm at the Aliw Theater (CCP Complex, Roxas Blvd.). Tickets available at the CCP Box Office (tel 832-3704), Ticketworld (891-9999) and Ticketnet (911-5555). The Vienna Boys’ Choir will also perform on November 11 at 7 pm at the Las Piñas Church.