As Hilton Head Choral Society honors its 50th anniversary season, one highlight of the celebration – a visit from the charming and famed Vienna Boys Choir – will be a bit of a departure for both groups. Though it will be the fourth time the esteemed children’s chorus has performed locally at the invitation of the Choral Society, this is the first time they will perform in Bluffton.
The HHCS presents the Vienna Boys Choir ,with performances on February 23 and 24, 2026.
“This is the first time in 50 years we will present a performance across the bridge,” said Mona Huff, chair of the anniversary celebration committee. Two performances will be held, February 23 and 24, 2026, at Lowcountry Community Church.
Planning for the season of events began in January. “In March, we sent an initial letter of intent to the Vienna Boys Choir,” Huff said. Once the invitation was accepted, and word got out, the response exceeded expectations. “We started with one date, but the response was so great that we expanded to two nights – which is another first for us.”
Hilton Head Choral Society’s regular concerts have been held at First Presbyterian Church for decades. The committee recognized that a larger venue with more seating would be required for the Vienna Boys Choir performances, so they began looking around the area.
Enter Lowcountry Community Church. “They have been so welcoming and helpful with us,” Huff said. “We are excited to partner with them. We all just want to share the joy and the talent.”
Artistic DirectorDr. Dustin C. Ousley
“In the past, the Choral Society has performed in other churches, as well as outdoors on Veterans Day and Memorial Day,” said Maureen Duffy, a Choral Society board member and marketing director. “We have stepped up our marketing efforts,” she said, to fill the large auditorium at Lowcountry Community Church. “It’s a tremendous venue. There is no bad seat. They have been wonderful to work with, and I would love to perform there again.”
Because the larger venue will accommodate more people, Duffy said the hope is that families will attend together. “We are hoping to encourage young people who attend to try out choral music,” she said.
While HHCS holds the distinction of being the longest-running performance group on the island, the Vienna Boys Choir is one of the longest-running continually performing groups in the world. Their history dates back nearly six centuries when, in 1498, Vienna’s Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I established an Imperial Chapel. He decreed that boys must be among the regular singers in the chapel, thus creating the beginnings of the modern-day choir.
Those early choristers followed their emperor on the road to sing at various parliamentary meetings, state processions, weddings, and feasts. Over the years, members included Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, and Franz Schubert. The choir is said to have attracted the attention of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was in Vienna in the 1700s.
Today’s Vienna Boys Choir includes 90 members divided into four chorus groups, with each performing under the Vienna Boys Choir title. Altogether, the choirs perform about 300 concerts per year. On Sundays, the choirs rotate appearances at the Vienna Imperial Chapel, singing mass along with the men’s chorus of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
The first local concert by the Vienna Boys Choir was held in November 2006, as the inauguration of the Hilton Head Choral Society Presents series, created by then-artistic director Tim Reynolds. The choir returned in March 2012 and again in October 2017.
The 2026 concert will be the first “Presents” concert since Dr. Dustin Ousley took the reins as artistic director of the Choral Society in 2022, after Reynolds retired.
Founding Artistic Director Martha Gregory in 2025
BUT FIRST, A HOLIDAY CONCERT
The excitement about the February performance has not diminished the Choral Society’s enthusiasm about its annual holiday performance, slated for 7 p.m. December 5 at First Presbyterian Church. (At press time, tickets were nearly sold out.)
“The holiday concert has special meaning for us,” Huff said. “The Choral Society was formed specifically to sing Handel’s Messiah, and it was several years before we added a spring concert. In tribute to the fact that we started with the Messiah, the first half of this year’s program will feature pieces from that work.”
The humble beginnings of the chorus in 1976 were due to the efforts of Martha Gregory, who had moved to the island in the late 1960s. Trained in choral music at Wesleyan Conservatory in Macon, Georgia, and later in New York City, Gregory longed to be part of a singing group in her new locale.
“I have always been in music. I did well with oratorio in New York,” Gregory said in a recent interview from her home in Anderson. “After I married, we moved to Clemson, where I worked in the music department at the school. I also did theatre and sang in the church choir. I sang the Messiah in various choirs up there – as I had in other places I had lived. I just loved it so much and I wanted to do it here.”
But how would she find other singers on an island with a population of just a couple thousand residents?
In the early 1970s, Gregory had become news editor of the Island Packet newspaper. “Being at the paper, I could put in anything I wanted, so I put a little ad in: ‘Come learn and sing the Messiah,’” she said.
The first night, 55 people showed up; the next week, that number increased to 80. “We had only about six weeks to prepare,” Gregory said. She found an accompanist to come down from Charleston; her brother brought in musicians from Greenville for the orchestra; and Principal Isaac Wilborn said they could use the 400-seat cafetorium at Hilton Head Elementary School.
That first concert in 1976 was a smash hit. The following Christmas, the numbers grew, and continued to grow each year. Gregory sought donations from local businesses to help with expenses. “Everything I asked for – anything – they always gave it,” she said. “People realized real fast we were going to do something big. Lots of great things happened, and lots of people helped.”
Gregory stayed on as director through 1986. Subsequent directors continued to produce portions of the Messiah each year at Christmas for a number of years.
In addition to beloved selections from the Messiah, this year’s program will celebrate the season with traditional favorites and contemporary holiday classics. Special guest performers will add to the voices of the membership, accompanied by the orchestra and led by Dr. Ousley.
Tickets for all performances may be purchased at hiltonheadchoralsociety.org or by calling 843-341-3818.
