Vienna Boys Choir
February 26, 2026 at 7:30 p.m. in Wright Auditorium
The Vienna Boys Choir is one of the most famous choirs in the world, and one of its oldest, boys have been singing at Vienna’s Imperial Chapel at least since 1296. Two hundred years later, on July 7, 1498, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. established a Court Chapel in Vienna. He gave specific instructions that there were to be boys among the singers, thus laying the foundation for the Vienna Boys Choir. Like their modern successors, the Early modern boys spent much time on the road, following their imperial employer to sing at the Holy Roman Empire’s
parliamentary meetings, imperial coronations, weddings, state processions, and feasts.
Over the centuries, the Viennese court attracted musical geniuses like Heinrich Isaac, Johann Joseph Fux, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Composers Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, and Franz Schubert sang as boys with the choir; Anton Bruckner gave them singing and piano lessons.
Today, the former imperial ensemble has grown into an entire campus; the modern Vienna Boys Choir is a private, non-profit organization which funds itself chiefly through income generated from concerts and touring, as well as donations and sponsorship deals. The Vienna Boys Choir maintains a primary school and a grammar school whose syllabuses focus on choral music and singing. 330 boys and girls between the ages of six and nineteen attend the schools on campus. All students have individual voice lessons, and all sing in one of the choirs. In addition to the four famous boys’ choirs, there is a female counterpart—the Vienna Girls Choir (Wiener Chormädchen) for girls aged 10 to 14, as well as the Chorus Primus, a mixed children’s chorus comprised of all boys and girls enrolled in the 4th grade of the choir’s primary school, and the Chorus Juventus, the mixed youth choir of the Senior High School. The Vienna Boys Choir’s education, listed by UNESCO as cultural heritage, is open to all, regardless of origin, gender, nationality, or religion.
There are currently 90 active boy choristers, divided into four boys’ choirs, which all perform as “Vienna Boys Choir”—Brucknerchor (Choirmaster Manolo Cagnin), Haydnchor (Choirmaster Jimmy Chiang), Mozartchor (Choirmaster Manuel Huber), and Schubertchor (Choirmaster Niccolò Morello). The four choirs share concerts, tours, sound recordings and filming equally. Between them, they perform almost 300 concerts per year, with almost half a million people attending. Since 1924, the choirs have completed more than 1000 tours in 100 different countries, clocking up a staggering 29,000 concerts.
On Sundays, the choirs take turns singing mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel, joining forces with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the men’s chorus of the Vienna State Opera. They frequently participate in large-scale symphonic concerts, performing under conductors like Joana Mallwitz, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Franz Welser-Möst. Other highlights in the choirs’ calendars are appearances at the Salzburg Festival and at the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic.
The Vienna Boys Choir cooperates with several other charities, such as UNICEF, “Licht ins Dunkel” (Light into Darkness, an Austrian charity), and die moewe Child protection agency. Together with Caritas and the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Choir founded “superar”, an outreach program offering children access to free music education. In addition, the Vienna Boys Choir runs Chorus amabilis, a choir for adult singing enthusiasts, aimed particularly at pensioners.
In 2023, the Choir celebrated its 525th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Deutsche Grammophon released a live album of the anniversary concert in Vienna’s Musikverein, Decca Classics released a box set of 21 CDs featuring the Choir’s landmark recordings, and academic publishing house Böhlau released a book on the Choir’s rich history. In 2024, the Vienna Boys Choir and the Vienna Girls Choir jointly received the European Culture Award.
Erasmus Baumgartner was appointed Artistic Director of the Vienna Boys Choir in the fall of 2023. www.viennaboyschoir.net
Manuel Huber is one of the Vienna Boys Choir’s conductors and he also arranges music and lectures on choral conducting and voice training.
Huber was born in Brixen-Bressanone, South Tyrol. He started playing the piano and singing at a young age. For eight years, he sang with the Vinzentinum Boys’ Choir in Brixen. At 15, Manuel Huber started conducting the choirs in his native village of Weitental and began studying piano at Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory in Bolzano. He went on to study choral and orchestral conducting, music education, and psychology in Salzburg, finishing his courses with distinction.
He has conducted the Chamber Orchestra Budweis, the Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic Orchestra and the Mozarteum Symphony Orchestra. In 2017, he headed the youth project at an opera festival in Immling, Bavaria. For two years, he was choirmaster and voice coach of the Tölz Boys Choir in Munich.
In 2019, Manuel Huber became choirmaster of the Vienna Boys Choir’s Mozart Choir. He selects and rehearses the boys’ concert repertoire, as well
as the masses for the sung services at Vienna’s Imperial Chapel. In addition, he prepares the choristers for sound recordings and film projects, and for special concerts conducted by the likes of Ivor Bolton, Riccardo Muti, and Franz Welser-Möst.
Asked about his work with his choir, Manuel Huber said, “I love our work together, the boys’ enthusiasm for music. My goal is to teach them the tools of the trade, to understand and feel music. It is wonderful to see them grow up and come into their own.”
Artist Videos
February 26, 2026 Vienna Boys Choir Program Notes
Individuals requesting accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) should contact ECU’s ADA coordinator at least 48 hours prior to the event at 252-737-1018 or ada-coordinator@ecu.edu.