Choir school celebrates crystal anniversary

Intermountain Catholic

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The school's all-girl choir will perform in the Bay Area later this year. IC photo/Marie Mischel

SALT LAKE CITY — Fifteen years ago, an after-school singing program formed the basis of the Madeleine Choir School’s first student body. On Aug. 26, 1996, 96 uniformed students in grades 4 through 8 "who had struggled to figure out how to tie a tie" met in the Cathedral of the Madeleine’s plaza, recalled Gregory Glenn, one of the school founders and its pastoral administrator.

Among the luminaries who attended the opening day were James O’Donnell, master of music of Westminster Abbey in London; Dr. Leo Nestor, director of music at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.; and Dr. Richard Proulx, director of music at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.

"They all came to help celebrate our school in Salt Lake City, so it was a real exciting time," Glenn said.

The school opened with full enrollment in grades 4 through 7, with a smaller 8th grade. Fifteen years later, the school has 275 students in grades pre-K through 8. In 2002, they moved from the basement of the Cathedral to a new campus down the block at 205 East 1st Ave.

"It was a bright, sunshiny day in December," Glenn said. At the beginning of the school day, with the Cathedral tower bells ringing, "all of the students from the basement processed up (to the new campus) and were led by their teachers into their new classroom spaces."

This year’s 8th-graders comprised the school’s first kindergarten class. Andrea Steenburgh’s son is among them. At kindergarten registration, the class didn’t have a teacher and only a few students enrolled, but she was impressed with the school’s reputation and by the time the school year started there were 20 kindergartners in the class.

Now, with her son in 8th grade and her daughter in 6th at the school, "I have absolutely no concerns academically," she said. "We’ve always had fantastic teachers."

Her son has a musical ability that without the school probably would have been lost, she said; instead, he has had the opportunity to perform with the Utah Opera and Symphony and tour nationally.

Steenburgh, who has been the school’s accountant for the past three years, sees the musical education as benefiting her children’s academics.

Being part of the performing choir helps students learn time management and how to present themselves in public spaces, said Johanna Wheelton, the school’s director of advancement, as well as "how to speak with adults. I think it develops them emotionally and develops their personal maturity."

Many Madeleine Choir School students go on to attend Judge Memorial Catholic High School, and are prepared academically to do so, said Judge Principal Rick Bartman. "They greatly contribute to student life as well, and are active and involved students."

Last year, the choir school began offering two classes in kindergarten and plans to add one class per year so that by 2018 they will have two classes in each grade. It is in the midpoint of a capital campaign to raise $5.5 million to refurbish the 100-year-old Jacquelyn M. Erbin Hall to accommodate additional classrooms, a song school, piano lab, science lab, library and technology center. Phase 3 of the capital campaign is construction of a field house for physical education.

During the past few years the school has increased its outreach to the Hispanic community to make the student population more representative of the Catholic community, Glenn said. "That’s been a big project and one that I think all of us feel it has been very rewarding."

Last year, 13 percent of the students were Hispanic; the diocese as a whole is more than 70 percent Hispanic.

The school’s curriculum stresses music, including violin instruction, choral singing and music theory, but also emphasizes traditional subjects such as math and English. Most of the classes are capped at 25 students and have waiting lists, said Wheelton. The performance choir tours regularly; this year they are scheduled for a Bay Area tour on and during 2012 a tour of Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany is planned.