About the Choir

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The St. John’s Boys’ Choir offers an enriching experience in music education with an emphasis in vocal music, as well as the socializing experience of shared enterprise, fellowship, cultural awareness, and touring for boys ages 8-15. The Choir promotes vocal music education in Central Minnesota and offers the unique experience of a well-trained boys’ choir to its audiences.

Now in its 31st season, The St. John's Boys' Choir continues the tradition of enabling boys to express themselves through music, and provides an environment that nurtures and encourages creativity. Members of The St. John’s Boys’ Choir represent home, public, and private schools in more than 15 communities around Central Minnesota.

Founded in 1981 by Br. Paul Richards of the Saint John's monastic community, the choir has grown over the past 28 years to include three musical ensembles - a Concert Choir, Junior Varsity Choir and Training Choir. On May 12, 1993 the choir became independent of the Abbey, self-incorporated, and formed a board of directors, which serves as the governing body. The choir still maintains strong ties with the monastic community as well as Saint John's University, ministering at several liturgies throughout the year and performing at various university concerts and events.

Choir members meet twice a week for two hours and learn proper breathing, music literacy, solfège, music history, performance etiquette, recorder instructions, ear training, and voice care. The St. John’s Boys’ Choir performs approximately fifty concerts per year which include a repertoire of sacred, classical, folk, and Broadway music. Concert sites include local schools, churches, civic organizations, private business, public performances, and in concert halls around the world. The choir collaborates with orchestras, professional adult choral groups, other children choirs, as well as with nationally recognized organizations. They have also been selected to perform at state and divisional conferences of the American Choral Directors' Association.

Committed to promoting musical education in Central Minnesota, SJBC, in collaboration with the SCSU Cantabile Girls Choir, hosts the Central Minnesota KidSing Festival, inaugurated in 2008 to bring together school chidlren from the community for a day of music making. The choir has also organized outreach programs in inner city schools and often performs for local school children either at matinee theater performances or through school visits. The choir frequently performs with local artists such as the Cantabile, the Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota, the Minnesota Center Chorale, the Amadeus Chamber Symphony and the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra.

The choir seeks to promote the culture of Minnesota and has collaborated with several Minnesota artists including Jearlyn Steele and George Mauer, and was recently heard on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" as part of the 35th Anniversary broadcast. The choir has commissioned and premiered works by several Minnesota composers, most recently a new musical setting of "How Can I Keep From Singing" by René Clausen (30th anniversary commission) and an opera for boys - "The Star Gatherer" by Stephen Paulus (25th anniversary commission). In 2009 the choir reinstituted and hosted the Minnesota Boys' Choir Festival, bringing together the state's community boys' choir organizations for the first time in three decades.

The boys also act as amabassadors around the world, singing in churches and concert stages in countries spanning three continents. In 2008 the boys represented Minnesota and the United States at the World Festival of Singing for Men and Boys in the Czech Republic. The choir has hosted several international festivals, including the world's largest male choir festival, AmericaFest, five times (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005). They will be appear at the 2012 Pacific International Children's Choir Festival in Eugene, OR in the summer of 2012.

The choir has produced four independent recordings, most recently "Endless Song", a selection of the choirs' most memorable songs from the past five seasons. The choir can also be heard on recordings by Saint John's Abbey and University, and on Amy Grant's CD "Music of the Spirit".