Boys’ Choir Under the Vault

Since 2023, the boys’ and men’s choirs from the nation’s cathedrals have gathered once a year, around Candlemas (or, as this year, the weekend before), for the joint singing event “Boys’ Choir under the Vaults.” The purpose of the gathering is to get to know one another, to strengthen and inspire, and to discover both the similarities and the unique circumstances that shape choir life in a cathedral.

This year’s program is inspired by the “architecture” of the church year – its shifting interplay of light and darkness, death and resurrection, from Advent and Christmas through Lent and toward Easter. The repertoire ranges from Bernstein’s swinging setting of Psalm 100 to Howells’s beautiful interpretation of the text “As the hart longs for the water brooks, so longs my soul for thee, O God.”

Britten’s youthful work A Hymn to the Virgin is a carol often heard at the Anglican Christmas service A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Of Bach’s Cantata No. 50, only one movement survives – a brief, double-chorus masterpiece with a text from the Book of Revelation: “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God.”

Storkyrkan Boys’ Choir, Uppsala Cathedral Boys’ Choir, Västerås Cathedral Boys’ Choir, Lund Cathedral Boys’ Choir, and Gothenburg Cathedral Boys’ Choir
Margareta Raab, David Johansson, Susannah Carlsson, Mattias Eklund, Petter Ekberg, and Gregory Lloyd — conductors and organists

from the programme:
Charles Wood Hail Gladdening Light
Herbert Howells Like as the Hart Desireth the Waterbrooks
Ernest Walker I Will Lift up Mine Eyes
Leonard Bernstein Chichester Psalms nr 1 Urah, hanevel!
Benjamin Britten Hymn to the Virgin
Ralph Vaughan Williams The Call och Antiphon ur Five Mystical Songs
Johann Sebastian Bach Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft

Age limit: 6 years and older
Free admission

Please note that large bags, backpacks, suitcases, and strollers are not allowed in the church!