Monday, June 23, 2025
The St. Agnes Cathedral Boys Choir marked its 65th anniversary this year with a celebration of song, legacy and community.
Founded in 1960 at the direction of the first bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Walter Kellenberg, the choir has grown from a local ensemble into a nationally and internationally recognized group. Over the decades, the boys choir has performed for popes, presidents and world-renowned musicians, all while maintaining a deep connection to its home parish in Long Island.
“It’s a special camaraderie that the singers and their families [develop] over the years,” Michael Bower, music director, said.
Open to boys starting in third grade, the choir includes young sopranos and altos through eighth grade and continues as a men-and-boys choir, allowing older members — high schoolers, college students and even fathers — to sing alongside the younger members.
The choir’s 65th anniversary culminated in a special concert on May 16 featuring a retrospective program of the 65-member group’s most beloved pieces. Alumni from across the decades were invited to take a walk down “memory lane,” Bower said, and join the current members for two final songs: the Southern spiritual “Ride the Chariot” and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah.”
The concert featured a variety of choral pieces showing off the vocalists’ talents, including a remarkable solo from soprano soloist Marcus Samedy, eighth grader, and another solo from his mother, Joyce Williams-Samedy.
St. Agnes Cathedral, originally part of the Diocese of Brooklyn, became the seat of the newly established Diocese of Rockville Centre in 1957. It was around this time that the vision for a full boys choir took root, realizing the dream of Monsignor Peter Quealy, the parish’s early pastor, who had imagined a grand cathedral to serve Long Island’s growing Catholic population.
Three years later, in 1960, the boys choir was officially established. Since then, it has performed at the White House for three U.S. presidents, sung at Lincoln Center, the New York State Capitol, Citi Field and even performed with famed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein at the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Internationally, the choir has toured across Europe, Canada and the Vatican, where it performed for Pope St. John Paul II. In 2018, the group sang in Vienna under the direction of the Vienna Boys Choir’s conductor, accompanied by members of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera.
Also at the concert, Holliday Haynes was honored as she prepares to retire from her lengthy time as cantor for the cathedral. Mayor Francis Murray and Very Reverend Michael Duffy honored Haynes and the choir.
For more information about the anniversary concert or to reconnect as an alumnus, visit StAgnesCathedral.org.
