Choir marks 25th anniversary

Next weekend's Christmas concerts by the Salt Lake Children's Choir in the Cathedral of the Madeleine will have a special significance for the ensemble that stretches well beyond the holiday season. They mark the choir's 25th anniversary and the beginning of a yearlong celebration.

"This is a very, very exciting year for us," said choir founder and director Ralph B. Woodward. "These concerts are the opening event of our 25th anniversary season."

Woodward added that the celebration will culminate at the official anniversary concerts in Libby Gardner Concert Hall and Abravanel Hall next May. "There will be some exciting performances later in Salt Lake City," he promised.

But before then, in what turned out to be an auspicious coincidence, the choir has been invited to perform at the prestigious American Choral Directors Association national convention in Los Angeles next February. "The choir will be featured in three concerts at the convention."

Woodward finds it hard to believe that a quarter of a century has passed since he started the choir. Especially when he thinks back to how it all came about. "We gave our first concert in December of 1979. The children were in robes made from their dads' shirts and with a makeshift bow."

The first concert was held in Whitmore Library. There were only about two-dozen singers in the original choir. "We didn't have a lot of kids in the choir because I didn't do auditions until October," Woodward said.

At the time, children's choirs were a new concept in Utah. "There was a boy's choir then, the Utah Boy's Choir, and there were efforts to organize other choirs, but most of the youth groups were associated with schools."

Woodward said he decided to start a children's choir because he saw there was a need to have children sing music focused on a specific repertoire. "It happened just because I had to do this. There was a call to have a group singing a certain kind of music."

And that repertoire includes art music by all the great composers, from the Renaissance to the 20th century, along with a large dose of folk music and some lighter pieces familiar to the audience.

Woodward said that the Christmas concerts next weekend will be true to the choir's traditions. "We're going to be singing the type of repertoire that we've done consistently over the years."