Vienna Choir Boys bring sweet sounds to UNLV on Saturday

Thursday, March 3, 2005 | 8:20 a.m.

UNLV Performing Arts Center will bring the Vienna Choir Boys to Artemus Ham Hall on Saturday as part of its "New York Stage and Beyond" series.

Conducted by Vienna-born Robert Rieder, a former member of the choir, the program will include pieces by Carl Orf ("O Fortuna"), Felix Mendelssohn ("Hebe deine Augen auf Engelterzet"), Rieder ("Kyrie" and "Gloria"), Schumann ("Zigeunerleben") and a selection of gospels.

The choir, based on tradition and formality, is composed of 100 singers between the ages of 10 and 14 and gives roughly 300 performances each year between its four touring groups.

An educational goal of the choir is to expose the boys to varying styles of music. The groups perform selections from medieval to contemporary, as well as experimental music. Its motets, waltzes and polkas are among some of the choir's own arrangements.

Organized in 1498 for Emperor Maximillian I, the young singers sang exclusively for the court, at mass or for private events. In 1918 the choir, which would soon be known as the Wiener Sangerknaben, branched out. By the 1930s it had performed in Berlin, Prague, Zurich, Spain, Norway, Sweden, the United States and South America.