Choirboy Justin

There he is, Choirboy Justin. The boy on the end. I didn't get a photo of the entire choir unfortunately, but they number about 90. This was the annual Christmas, or Vianocne, concert for the "Bratislavsky Chlapcensky Zbor" (Bratislava Boys' Choir). A guest boys' choir from Poland also sang. They numbered only about 25, but were awfully cute and it was fascinating to see them. The two choirs sang together at the end.

Justin sang for a portion of the concert - he is with the smaller children who don't have the endurance or performance skills of the older, more experienced choir members. He sang several traditional Slovak Christmas carols as well as Silent Night, or Ticha Noc, Svata Noc in Slovak. One song was in Latin. I had heard all the songs around the house, of course, but nothing could prepare me for the beautiful sound once inside the church with all the boys singing together.



I had been hoping the concert would be in an old cathedral, but it was in a modern Catholic church - perhaps built in the last 20 years. The acoustics were great, which is the most important thing. The church was really cold, so all the boys kept their coats on until performance time. The oddest thing was this church had a bronze crucifix mounted on a cross painted yellow. I kept looking at it and wondered just what they were thinking.......

The choir just released a Christmas DVD that is wonderful. Justin was not a member yet, so he is not on the recording, but it has many scenes from Bratislava and Slovakia. If you are interested, I can mail a copy to you. I would guess with postage, $22 would cover the cost. Let me know if anyone wants to buy one, even though the Christmas season is coming to a close.

I will attempt to place two video clips from our digital camera below - it can give you a little idea of their sound. The first clip is of their warm-up exercises. The second is the concert. Justin is the boy on your left on the end. The conductor, Magdalena Rovnakova, has great stage presence but we know she must be stern at times to keep the choir in line and performing as well as they do!