Saint Paul's Choir School to Present Spring Concert Celebrating Motherhood

The singers of the Saint Paul's Choir School will present Canticum pro Matre tua: Music for Your Mother on May 12, 2024 at 3:00 PM. Featuring the music from an eclectic mix of composers such as Camille Saint-Saëns, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Anton Bruckner, Benjamin Britten, Franz Schubert, and more, the concert takes place on Mother's Day and centers on the themes of the Virgin Mary, motherhood, and springtime.

The performance will feature the Boys & Schola of Saint Paul's Choir, a group made up of the boy choristers from St. Paul's Choir School and professional singers from the Boston area. The Pre-Choristers of Saint Paul's Boys Choir, the youngest choristers of Saint Paul's Choir School, as well as the Music Scholars of Saint Paul's Boys Choir, will also be featured throughout the afternoon's performances.

Saint Paul's Choir School is the only all-boys Catholic choir School in the U.S., and has enjoyed long-time collaborations with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Lyric Opera, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Boston Pops. This coming October, the St. Paul's Boys Choir will join the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its performance of Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony, conducted by Andris Nelsons.

The musical selections for this concert resound with the joy of the month of May, but also commemorate Mother's Day in a special way: many of the selections feature sacred texts honoring the Virgin Mary. In doing so, the music of this concert honors mothers today, mothers held in remembrance, and those yearning to become mothers in the future.

Audience members can expect to hear several settings of Ave Maria, some well-known and some lesser-known; for example, they will hear this traditional text set by composers such as Camille Saint-Saëns, Robert Parsons, and Joseph Rheinberger. Other selections by Charles Wood, Richard Webster, and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry revel in the joy of Maytide, with tones of celebration as spring ushers warmer weather into Cambridge.

The concert will also feature three choral settings of the Sanctus, which is as the heart of every Mass. Palestrina's a cappella Missa Papae Marcelli is a favorite of the St. Paul's Boys Choir. From Messe Solennelle by Jean Langlais, this Sanctus features the choir in a dramatic cry out to God, underpinned by a turbulent, chromatic, and stirring organ accompaniment. The Sanctus from Benjamin Britten's Missa Brevis for treble voices and organ is an elegantly efficient masterpiece that captures the beauty of this most sacred moment in the Eucharistic rite.

Canticum pro Matre tua: Music for Your Mother will take place on May 12, 2024 at 3:00 PM in St. Paul's Church at 29 Mt Auburn St in Cambridge, MA. Tickets for Canticum pro Matre tua: Music for Your Mother start at $35 and are available by visiting the button below.

About the St. Paul's Choir School

Saint Paul's Choir School (SPCS) is a private Catholic school for boys in the 3rd through 8th grades located in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. The school was founded in 1963 by Dr. Theodore Marier and is part of Saint Paul's Parish which is led by Father William Kelly, Pastor, who is an alumnus of SPCS. It is the only all-boys Catholic Choir School in the United States. Dedicated to providing rigorous academic training and an extensive and unique education in music and liturgy, Saint Paul's Choir School accepts musically talented and academically qualified boys ages nine through fourteen for full-time study in grades three through eight. The choir has long-time collaborations with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Boston Pops. The choir has made appearances at Fenway Park, Good Morning America, PBS, and most recently, sang for Pope Francis in Italy.

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