New Director Takes Singing Into Future at Last Boys’ Choir School

By Susanna Baird

As enrollment declines at Catholic schools around the country,
the last remaining Catholic boys’ choir school in the United States
has hired a new director, reports The Boston Globe.

Supplying a positive answer to the question of falling student
numbers, the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School welcomed a young
Englishman, John Robinson, into its fold as music director this
year.

Himself a graduate of England’s Hereford Cathedral choir school
and a former assistant organist at Canterbury Cathedral, Robinson
will guide the boys forward as the school tries to gain a foothold
of relevancy in the 21st century. He hopes to bring the boys back
to such venues as Boston’s Symphony Hall, where the choir performed
in its heyday.

“John is taking on an awful lot,” said Mark Dwyer, organist,
choirmaster and member of the search committee that hired Robinson,
speaking to the Globe. “He has a real opportunity to mold and shape
the future.”

The boys, who must audition and pay $4,000 to attend the
Cambridge, Mass., school, undertake a unique education that has
them singing at Mass five days a week, as well as at private
functions such as weddings and funerals. They also carry a rigorous
course load that includes the typical middle-school subjects but
also music theory, recorders, handbells and piano.