For first time, all choir school's choirs perform nationally

Courtesy of The Madeleine Choir School

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Matt Robertson, director of The Madeleine Choir School's St. Nicholas Choir, conducts choristers as they perform during the Catholic Youth Choir Festival in California.

SALT LAKE CITY — This year for the first time all of The Madeleine Choir School’s choirs performed nationally.

While the St. Gregory and St. Cecilia premier performance choirs traditionally have travelled either nationally or internationally each year with the Choir of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, this was the first time that the St. Nicholas and St. Hildegard choirs have traveled. These two preparatory choirs went to California as part of the Catholic Youth Choir Festival.

The decision to have these choirs, which are comprised of students in the fifth through eighth grades, travel nationally came after the growth that the school has had over the years.

“As the choir school has doubled in size over the last decade, the quality of our music has improved at all levels. This has given us the opportunity to take our St. Nicholas and St. Hildegard choirs on the road for the first time,” said Matt Kitterer, the school’s director of advancement.

The choirs received an extremely positive reception in California, Kitterer said.

“The tour to California was associated with the Catholic Youth Choir Festival,” he said. “It also allowed the choirs to provide their liturgical services at Catholic parishes in the Los Angeles area during their travels. … One choir director commented, ‘I hope your choristers know that they carried the festival today.’”

Exposing the choristers to this type of experience gives them “the opportunity to know each other better and to learn by seeing other communities and sharing their services with them,” he said.

The goal for the choristers  is always to represent the school, city and state as well as possible, and “based on the feedback we received from so many different people we encountered, we can definitely say it was a huge success,” said Matt Robertson, St. Nicholas Choir director.

In addition, the overall experience of the school choristers, directors, chaperones and teachers that had the opportunity to travel was pleasant, Kitterer said.  

“The chaperones and teachers who accompanied the choirs to southern California got a nice reminder of how well-behaved the MCS students are,” as numerous people they encountered along the way commented, from flight attendants to restaurant owners and more, he said.

He said the manager of the hotel where they stayed commented, ”We have not had one single problem from any of your students. They were even holding the door for other guests. All I can say is you guys must be doing something right.”  

While The Madeleine Choir School has not made plans for these two choirs to go on national tours in the future, “the school is excited to explore more opportunities for the St. Nicholas and St. Hildegard choirs and will seek to take them on tour as the right situations arise for them in the future,” Kitterer said.

 The Choir of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, which features choristers of the Madeleine Choir School, tours annually, alternating between domestic and international destinations each year. This year the cathedral choir traveled to Chicago and South Bend, Ind., where they performed at venues that included St. John Cantius Church, Holy Name Cathedral,  the Basilica of Sacred Heart, and the Church of Our Lady of Loretto.