Arts Life
A Musical First
Vienna Choir Boys will include American Jewish
liturgical works in their Detroit concert.
DIANA LI EB ERIvIAN
Special to the Jewish News
T
he Vienna Choir Boys, an
ensemble founded in 1498
for the Roman Catholic
Hapsburg Imperial Chapel, will per-
form 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 6, at the
Cathedral of the Most Blessed
Sacrament in Detroit.
The performance, part of
the choir's 35-city United
States tour, is a rare
opportunity to hear this
famed group live without
traveling to Europe.
And, for the first time
in its 500-year history,
the Vienna Choir Boys'
concert program includes
American Jewish liturgi-
cal music — in Hebrew.
This epochal event
came about through the
efforts of the Milken
Archive of American
Jewish Music, a massive
recording project that will
eventually comprise more
than 500 CDs. For one of
these CDs, Milken execu-
tive Paul Schwendener
recruited the Vienna
Choir Boys.
The recording, Vienna
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11/ 5
2004
52
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tions of Christian religious works
and classical art songs. Although this
is the first time the choir has sung
American Jewish music, in the 19th
century the group did perform
works by Jewish composer Salomon
Sulzer (1804-90), a friend of noted
Viennese composer Franz Schubert,
Schwendener said.
Choir Boys: A Jewish
Celebration In Song, was
issued on the Naxos label
on Sept. 21, 2004.
"After the recording ses-
sions, they said they'd
love to perform this
music on one of their
The Vienna Choir Boys: Performing American
tours," said Schwendener, Jewish music for the first time.
whose many responsibili-
ties with the archive
Although it has just been released,
include the title of artist and reper-
Vienna Choir Boys: A Jewish
toire adviser.
Celebration In Song is already garner-
"Vienna has one of the worst his-
ing
great reviews. "This CD shows
tories anyplace for anti-Semitism,"
them to be a group of high-caliber
Schwendener said, "but we never
musicians able to transform material
encountered anything but natural,
that is foreign to their history into
friendly, happy appreciation for the
profoundly meaningful music,"
music and the desire to do the best
wrote critic John Guinn in the
they possibly could."
The Vienna Choir Boys are best
known for their angelic interpreta-
A MUSICAL FIRST on page 53