Their songs will be the first to resonate on Saturday, even before the doors open. For three months, the 150 singers of this elite choir have been preparing for this “return home”, which marks the start of a season of more than 1,200 services and around thirty concerts.
The moment promises to be historic. At 7:40 p.m., Saturday, December 7, Archbishop Mgr Ulrich will advance towards the doors of the building to knock three times with his crosier. Three times, voices will respond to him from inside the monument. Singing the verses of Psalm 121. A cappella. Without the slightest support. Not even that of the choir organ (for the moment a replacement organ pending the reconstruction of the one destroyed by the fire), which will have to symbolically wait for the awakening of the great organ, a few tens of minutes later, before being able to ring too.
These voices? These are those of the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris. A choir whose creation dates back almost 850 years. And which today provides elite training to some 150 singers, aged 6 to 28, in choral art. Performing a vast repertoire of sacred music from the Middle Ages to the present day. Without forgetting the specifics…