March
19
/ 2023
In yet another instance of the dissolution of gender barriers, girls are all set to storm one of the surviving bastions of male exclusivity: the all-boys Escolania choir, based at the Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat, near Barcelona, in Spain. Next year, for the first time in its centuries-old history, the boy sopranos will have women and girl “colleagues”, reports Classic FM. This will end the 700-plus year old male monopoly over the monastery choir. We know the tradition is at least 700 years old because the first written records of its existence date from 1307. It’s not the Escolania choir itself, composed of 45 boys aged 9 to 14, that will open up to women, but actually
