St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican is huge. But the voices of the Madeleine Choir School are big, too: at once breathtakingly sweet and powerful.
Next month, 80 students from the Salt Lake school will travel to St. Peter's for the ultimate field trip: singing Mass in the historic heart of Catholicism, the very center of the very center of their faith. It's the school's third invitation to sing at St. Peter's, but the first invitation to sing a Sunday Mass.
On a recent morning, students rehearsed one of the selections they'll perform, their voices so pure and joyful that the school's choir room seemed too small and ordinary to contain them. Still, music director Melanie Malinka thought there was room for improvement.
"How can you make these words sound interesting?" she asked.
A hand shot up. "Diction!"
When it was time to rehearse "Ave Verum," whose words are in Italian, Malinka urged the students to be careful of their pronunciation. "You have to be careful to say vehrgeenay, not vurgunay," she reminded them about the Italian word virgine. Otherwise, those folks in Rome might say, "They must be an American choir."
"We don't want them to say that, do we?" asked Malinka with a smile.
Modeled after historic cathedral choir schools in Europe, the Madeleine Choir School was begun a decade ago to provide rigorous training for local children and liturgical support for the Cathedral of the Madeleine. It is one of only two Catholic choir schools in the United States, and the only one that includes both girls and boys.
In 1998, just two years after the school began, the choir was invited to sing Mass at St. Peter's. Afterward, the children met with the cardinal archpriest, "who was particularly complimentary about the children's singing of the Gregorian Chant," remembers school director Gregory Glenn.
The school now plans a singing tour in Europe every two years, with a stop in Italy every four years so that each of the fifth- through eighth-graders can make the pilgrimage to Rome once during their school years.
As they prepare for this year's trip, the students are also studying art history and the history of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.
Singing is central to the school's curriculum, and early on parents realized that the discipline and focus required of a good choir translated to other areas of study as well, said principal William Hambleton. Counting the hour of singing class each day, and the Masses sung by each student several times a week at the cathedral, it's estimated the students sing about 365 hours a year.
But the school also provides a thorough academic curriculum and a humanities-rich program for non-singers. Boys whose voices mature before they graduate are moved into the "changed voice" program, singing with the adult choir.
Earlier this week, the young choir students lined up, two by two, to walk down South Temple Street to the Governor's Mansion, where they met with first lady Mary Kaye Huntsman to get some tips about the protocol of visiting a foreign country. It was probably designed as a photo op, but the exchange was surprisingly candid.
The first lady, whose husband served as the U.S. ambassador to Taiwan and Singapore before becoming Utah's governor, told them about the 2-inch-thick "spouses book" of protocol she had to learn, and related several embarrassing incidents during her tenure.
There was, for example, the dinner she served to Chinese dignitaries. "We were trying to think of what to feed them and — this was a huge mistake — we chose lasagna." Turns out the dignitaries didn't eat cheese, so they stirred their forks in their food the entire time, Huntsman recalled.
And then there was the time, at a farewell dinner hosted by the Chinese embassy, when she faced a plateful of crab claws and only chopsticks to eat them with. Her technique sent a bed of seaweed flying into the air, and then she got the giggles, with no one around her to laugh with because everything was formal and no one else spoke English. And still another time she once shook 200 people's hands with a piece of lettuce stuck in her teeth.
"Just learn to be who you are," Huntsman told the students. If you make a mistake or embarrass yourself, apologize and remember that "none of us is perfect in life." Be thoughtful and curious and respectful. Listen well. Bring along a journal, so that years from now you can tell your own children about what you saw and learned. If you don't understand what people are saying, just nod and smile.
In addition to the Sunday Mass at St. Peter's, the children's choir and adult choir members who are also making the trip will sing Masses in the cathedrals of both Milan and Florence, as well as in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on the anniversary of the church's dedication in 324. They will also sing concerts in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi and in the Chiesa del Gesu in Rome.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com