Tours not all song for boys’ choir

Press, 9 July 1983, Page 1

Tours not all song for boys’ choir

Life on tour is not all concerts and rehearsals for the Vienna Boys’ Choir. The 24 boys spent two hours relaxing and playing ball games at the Christ’s College gymnasium after arriving in Christchurch yesterday afternoon. Time to relax, meet children from the country they are touring, and to visit places of note is very important, says the prefect or tutor with the choir, Mr Wolfgang Zimmerman.

His task is to “look after the boys and make life during the tour interesting.” On his first tour after being with the school in Vienna for 12 months, Mr Zimmerman is glad that Christchurch is one of the last stops in the 4’/2-month tour of Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand.

Tours are usually only about three months. There are four Vienna boys’ choirs, two of which tour at a time. Each choir has its own conductor and the boys stay in the same group for their four years as choir members. It is the fourth tour for the conductor, Mr Josef Doeller. With the exception of the odd bout of homesickness, the boys enjoyed touring, he said. “They are very accomplished travellers and probably speak English better

than I do,” he said. The boys themselves were happy to talk about touring and their life as choirboys yesterday. Seven have celebrated birthdays on this tour — “Each with a big birthday cake and presents, lots of presents,” said Mr Zimmerman, “We have three big trunks of presents from Japan and Taiwan to take back with us."

The only question to cause concern was a request for names. “We do not ailow the boys to give their individual names. It is a rule of the director. We are the Vienna Boys’ Choir, all together,” Mr Zimmerman explained. The boys, who become members of the touring choirs when they are aged 10 after two years at the choir’s school, leave the choir when their voices break. They then finish their schooling at public schools in Vienna or their home towns at the choir’s expense. Some subsequently choose a music career. After concerts in Christchurch, the boys will perform in Dunedin and Australia before returning to Vienna and a month’s holiday.

Then it is back to school, said Mr Zimmerman. “They have to learn what other pupils learn in 10 months, in five. They still have to pass their examinations.”