When the Sound of Music was released in 1965 it took the world by storm, earning five Oscars.

 

For millions of people, the film is the rare combination of a powerful and moving story, first rate music, and breathtaking scenery of Salzburg!

 

 

The musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children and their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide to flee from Austria with the children.

 

 

About the Choir
In the year 1966, when the Salzburger Musikschulwerk took measures to promote choirs, the teacher Hans Laimer started the "Kindersingschule Maxglan". The members came from the primary school for boys in Maxglan in Salzburg. On the occasion of the choir's first significant jounrney abroad (in the meantime it had become rather successful) it was renamed "Salzburger Chorknaben". Some years later the school was also opened for girls and the choir boys followed this example and the choir was renamed "Salzburger Chorknaben und Chormaedchen" (Salzburger Boys Choir and Girls Choir).

 

 

 

At the age of eight Helmut Zeilner started his musical education at the University Mozarteum playing the piano, before he discovered singing. At the same university he studied singing and piano. He studied choir-conducting as well, also educational theory of music.

 

He attended many singing and choir-conducting courses, and sang with various choirs, such as the Arnold-Schoenberg-Choir, Salzburger Bach-Choir, Choir of the Salzburger Landestheater and the Jazz-Choire of the Musisches Gymnasium (under Erwin Ortner, Howard Arman, Gerald Wirth, etc).

 

Since 1992 Helmut Zeilner has taught the Salzburger Chorknaben und Chormaedchen, and since the year 2000 has been their artistic director.

Besides he conducts the Oberalmer Kirchenchor and teaches singing at the Salzburger Musikschulwerk, where he also teaches choir-conducting. Moreover, he is a lecturer at the Austrian Masterclasses in Zell a.d. Pram.