A noteworthy education

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Vol. 47, No. 8 | $2.95 June 6-19, 2014

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

A noteworthy education

Music and liturgy enrich learning at cathedral’s coed choir school

By MICK FORGEY

Salt Lake City may be known for its mountains and Mormons, but it’s also home to a unique elementary school.

The Madeleine Choir School, a service of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, is not only one of the few Catholic full-time choir schools in the U.S., it is also, according to faculty and NCR research, the only co-ed Catholic choir school.

“We were never interested in just serving either boys or girls. We wanted to make this opportunity available to both,” said Greg Glenn, director of liturgy and music for the cathedral, and pastoral administrator for the Madeleine Choir School.

“That was the driving force behind our decision to make it coeducational.”

About 350 pre-K through eighth-grade students currently attend Madeleine Choir School, which opened in 1996. In addition to attending full-time private Catholic school classes, the choristers, or student singers in the choir, practice and perform choral music, everything from eighth-century chants to 21st-century works.

Fifth- through eighth-grade choristers of the Madeleine Choir School at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City (Photo: Ari Loannides)

A normal day combines rigorous academic classes with a 50-minute, late-morning rehearsal for choristers. School gets dismissed at 3:30 p.m. Choristers who are serving in the weekday evening Mass get a break, then come back for rehearsal at 4:30 p.m., ending their day assisting with the 5:15 Mass in the cathedral.

Due to the number of services at the cathedral, the school divides the choirs.

The St. Gregory boys’ choir sings at the cathedral’s 5:15 p.m. Mass on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the St. Cecelia girls’ choir sings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

On Sundays at the 11 a.m.

Masses, the boys and girls alternate performing with the cathedral’s men’s choir. The boys’ and girls’ choirs often perform together for major liturgies, the school’s tours and its concert series, which highlights great religious works of music.

“On those days, it’s fun to have us all together because they’re my friends, too,” said Stephen Grant, sixth-grader and a head chorister. “I also think the choir sounds better — richer and fuller with all those extra voices.”

According to Glenn, the school provides students with unique musical opportunities. Contemporary composers write new music for the students to perform.

The students participate in professional productions with the Utah Opera and the Utah Symphony. For the 2002 Winter Olympics, choristers performed with the Utah Symphony and the Mormon

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June 6-19, 2014

schools. If I only had Tabernacle Choir one or two of my kids in the music that here, we would never was used for the be able to take a family opening ceremovacation.” nies.

She added, “I also Raymond Grant, love the fact that they father of Stephen are in the same comand alumnus Kiermunity. It’s a small an, said the school community, but I feel allows parents to like they’re looking expose students out for each other.” to the world, “not Glenn said that only through their choir school helps stustudy, but also dents develop transferthrough the tourable skills, including ing, and the recordtime management, the ing and the musiability to perform at a cal opportunities moment’s notice, and that are given to all Fifth-graders Olivia Hanson and Elly Poppe work in the computer lab in being part of a team. of the students.”

2011. (Photo: Kristan Jacobsen) “It has also helped Kieran traveled me learn how to manto places like Italy age my time because it and Spain. Last is a big commitment (I also play volFebruary, Stephen performed as a leyball and basketball),” Holmgren boy soloist in “Chichester Psalms,” said in an email. a choral work by Leonard BernThe music and liturgy staff and stein, with the Helena Symphony faculty coordinate to help the stuOrchestra in Montana. dents balance choir practice and “Those kinds of experiences homework. Teachers make accomwould be very rare for any kind of modations for performances that public school student to achieve,” go late, and try to plan around busy Grant said. performing times. The staff also “The experience is amazing for works to sync the athletic program someone my age,” said seventhwith the choir schedule, so that grader Emma Holmgren. “I have choir doesn’t prohibit other extratraveled and performed in Europe curricular activities. and my family has been able to see Proof of the school’s success is me perform in many different counevident in its first alumni. Marc tries, which is neat.”

Day, a tenor who graduated in One of the benefits of a co-ed 1999, went on to study vocal perforchoir school is that families get to mance at the University of Illinois keep their school-age children toat Urbana-Champaign and earned gether. a master’s degree at the Manhattan The Gross family is a perfect exSchool of Music in New York. He ample. Jodi Gross, mother of eighthworks for Kent Tritle, whom Day grader Sophia, fifth-grader Max and said is one of the premiere conducfourth-grader Meredith, explained: tors in New York and the country.

“Because these kids have to sing Fifth-grader DaVinci Eccles and sixth-grader Ryan Kierulf sing during daily rehearsal in (The New York Times called Tritle for all of the Catholic holidays, our 2011. (Photo: Kristan Jacobsen) schedule is different from the other “the brightest star in New York’s

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choral music world” in a 2008 review.)

Day also works at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, and part-time as a board liaison and assistant to the president at the Manhattan School of Music. He performs regularly with several groups, such as St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue and the professional chorus Musica Sacra.

Jessica French, a 1998 alumna, teaches a chorister program at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, in Medina, Wash. She received a Bachelor of Music in organ performance from Indiana University and a Master of Music in organ performance from Yale University, where she received a fullride tuition scholarship. She sings as a soprano in a choral group called Choral Arts, and has sung at various churches throughout Seattle. She also composes choral music; Madeleine’s St. Cecelia choir performed one of her pieces last February.

The Madeleine Choir School has

overcome internal challenges. After beginning in the cathedral and struggling with limited space, the school raised about $4 million and purchased a large school campus in 2001.

Later, the school faced a financial crisis in 2008: $300,000 in accumulated debt and operating annually with a $100,000 deficit.

Administration teamed up with parent leaders and developed a tiered tuition system that enabled the school to maintain financial viability, get out of the red, and begin operating in the black. The system increased the number of families paying the full amount that it costs to educate their child, while maintaining access for families with less economic means. If a child really wants to attend the school, the tuition is determined based on family income, according to Glenn.

Initially, Glenn said, some questioned the viability of the school model with both boys and girls,

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since it wasn’t traditional of a choir school. Others questioned the need for a choir school in general.

But the school is gradually expanding. Currently, there are two classes per grade level for kindergarten through third grade. Each year, the school adds a second class to each grade. According to Glenn, by 2018, the school will be full, with two classes per grade level, topping out at about 480 students.

“I think the proof of the school’s service is in the ministry we’ve been able to engage in, in the life of prayer at the cathedral,” Glenn said. “The school has been open for 17 years now.

People have come to expect their service for these events, their musical ministry. And I think we’ve won everyone over. I think they see the great value in that it just really enhances the life of prayer in the cathedral.”

[Mick Forgey is a Bertelsen intern at NCR. His email address is mforgey@ncronline.org.]

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