Madeleine Choir School celebrates first 10 years

Intermountain Catholic

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Fourth-graders in Megan McGill's class work on labeling the files in their classroom folders on the first day of school Aug. 28. The school is celebrating its 10th anniversary with concerts, a contata, and a tour to Italy in November. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

Editor’s note: The Cathedral of the Madeleine will hold their annual Bishop’s Dinner, a fund raiser for the care and maintenance of the Cathedral of the Madeleine and its environs, Sept. 26, 2006, at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.

SALT LAKE CITY — Gregory Glenn, founder of the Madeleine Choir School, said he gets at least five or six calls a year from people all over the country asking for advice about how to start a choir school.

"My stock answer, no matter who I’m talking to is, ‘I can count off the first 100 things not to do,’" he said in an Aug. 28 interview with the Intermountain Catholic.

On the first day of school Glenn and Madeleine Choir School Principal William Hambleton could also count off the events that have already taken place on the 2006-2007 calendar to mark the school’s 10th anniversary.

"We held our Founders Day celebration in March, bringing back alum Evan Shinners, who presented a piano concert," Glenn said. Shinners graduated from the Madeleine Choir School and went on to the prestigious Julliard School of the Performing Arts in New York City.

"In a collaboration with the University of Utah’s Children’s Dance Theatre, we presented Benjamin Britten’s contata, ‘Noye’s Fludde,’ in May, which was an ‘all hands on deck’ experience for all of us," Glenn said. The event involved all students and teachers of the choir school who wished to participate. Those students who weren’t singing and dancing were shifting scenery, seating the audience, or working backstage. The school’s art department was put to work building sets and costumes. "Everyone was involved, and it was a very good experience for us."

Aug. 26 brought back a decade’s worth of alumni, teachers, parents, and supporters to attend the Cellar Dweller’s Party, a salute to those who helped begin the school in 1996 in the basement of the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

"We saw students who have graduated and their brothers and sisters who are students now," said Hambleton, who is beginning his second year as principal. "It really gave us a good sense of the continuity of the school."

In addition to founding principal Betsy Hunt, other returnees included the Huber family. Casey Huber was a member of the first eighth grade class that graduated in 1997. Now, his youngest brother, Ian, is a fourth-grader at the school and their sister, Allison, is in the seventh grade. Siblings and alumni Patrick, Katie, and Riley Huber were at the party. Casey, a student at the University of Utah, has returned to the Madeleine Choir School for the past two years as a physical education instructor.

Another face from the past returning to the school this year to teach is Patrick Lambert who teaches seventh grade at his alma mater.

Still in the planning stages for the anniversary year is a tour of Italy, which will see the Madeleine Choristers sing in cathedrals in Milan and Florence, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. They will then have the singular honor of singing in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on the feast of the dedication of that church.

Glenn said he originally set out to build a choir school on the European model, but changes in policies, goals, and priorities have resulted in a distinctly American model that others seek to emulate.

"Our school is coeducational, and it is accessible to all students who have the ability and the desire to attend," Glenn said. We try to provide financial aid for those who need it."

Hambleton added that expanding the school to include kindergarten and grades one through three also make the choir school unique.

Glenn said one goal of the school, to further integrate members of the growing Hispanic Catholic population, is a challenge for all Catholic schools, but he hopes to make the Madeleine Choir school a model.

The school’s anniversary year finds it involved in the second phase of a three-phase expansion, a capital campaign to raise $5.5 million for the renovation of Erbin Hall. Phase three will involve the construction of a field house and an athletic facility.

For Glenn, this anniversary is a time of growth and a time of thanks. He is grateful to Msgr. M. Francis Mannion, former rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine and pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish for his vision and support for the founding of the school, and to Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, former bishop of Salt Lake City, who also offered support, including locating the school’s first major donor, Sir Daniel Donohue and the Dan Murphy Foundation of California.

Glenn also cites the work and support of Tom and Mary McCarthey and the McCarthey family. The first building on the choir school campus is named after the late Jane McCarthey, a former organist and choir director.

"Bob Steiner gave the school one of its first local large donations in the name of his late wife, Jacqueline Erbin, after whom Erbin Hall is named," he said.

"I would also like to thank Betsy Hunt, our first principal, who served here for seven years, and our remarkable parents and teachers, without whose effort and work, the school would not be what it is."

For further information about the Bishop’s Dinner call 328-8941.