If you’re looking for a prelude to the holidays, look no further than the Vienna Boys Choir in concert tonight at the Tower Theatre in Bend. One of four touring groups the choir sends on the road, the group of 25 will lift their angelic voices — and quite possibly your spirits — in a program of historic tunes spanning centuries and international borders,

Emperor Maximilian I founded The Vienna Boys Choir in 1498, just six years after Christopher Columbus’s historic voyage across the Atlantic. Over the ensuing centuries, many members have gone on to musical fame in adulthood, a tradition that continues today.

“There are some (who) go on to sing professionally as well as being musicians, like being conductors or pianists. Many Vienna Philharmonic members were former Vienna Boys. Opera singers like tenor Jörg Schneider, Georg Nigl, who sings at the Vienna State Opera, or the famed countertenor of our time, Terry Wey, are also former Vienna Boys,” said Jimmy Chiang, the group’s conductor, or “kapellmeister” in German. (GO! interviewed Chiang by email due to a travel snafu.)

“I definitely feel honored and privileged to be part of this line of tradition, which included many major influential figures of the classical music like Haydn, Mozart and Schubert,” he said.

Boys in the choir hail from Austria and around the world. Chiang’s group includes singers from India, Japan and Canada. There are several paths to joining the choir, including tutelage at the school run by the choir, which has an emphasis on music and singing, Chiang said. “At the end of the fourth year, the boys can decide whether they want to become a member of the Vienna Boys, which mean they will spend the next four years of fifth to eighth grades at boarding school and touring all over the world,” he said.

Those who don’t attend the school can arrange to audition at the choir’s Vienna headquarters. Chances to audition without traveling to Austria also are available.

“There are also incidents and opportunities given during our tours all over the world. Parents of talented boys have contacted us and arranged to visit a concert or two taking place near where they live. They would audition directly with the kapellmeister, in this case, me on this tour after the concert. Audition process includes a presentation of the favorite song of the child, and maybe some sight singing or vocal exercise in addition. For me it is also important to get to know the child through some conversation, as well as with the parents,” Chiang said.

The Hong Kong-born maestro became part of the choir’s story in 2013. He started playing piano at age 4, making his first appearance as a concert pianist at 13. Chiang, who studied cello and composition, trained at such institutions as Trinity College of Music in London, where he earned a fellows diploma at 16.

At Baylor University here in the U.S., Chiang earned his Bachelor of Music degree and studied with Russian pianist Krassimira Jordan and Polish conductor Daniel Sternberg, according to jimmychiang.com. He earned his master of arts degree from the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, where he was the final student of the Austrian conductor Leopold Hager, who retired in 2004.

Chiang, who lives in Vienna today and also serves as principal conductor of the Hong Kong Pan Asia Symphony, said that his personal background in music from a young age helps him better relate to choir members.

“It does help me to know how far I could push a kid towards excellence as I have been there,” Chiang said. “But what helps more is that I was once a member of a children’s choir directed by my mother, and I am now also a father of two sons, and these factors make me understand the young choir members much better.”

There are benefits to working with young people, though it requires a huge amount of energy and endurance as a teacher and conductor, Chiang said. “They are … the most honest performers, they cannot fake it if they are not feeling well, or not motivated, yet, its up to me to give them the right kind of energy and atmosphere for each concert.

“As far as repertoire and programming, we have managed to do almost everything we want as long as there is an arrangement for it,” he said. “And if there is none, we make one. And as this tradition of Boys Choir singing has been running (for) 500 years, we inherit lots of such repertoires from the Renaissance time as well. For me, this is a total different kind of sound we are expecting, especially of 25 boys singing in the period right before their voices break. … I would call it a mixture of the pure children timbre with the bursting energy of becoming a man. A fascinating phenomenon.”

Tonight’s program at the Tower is divided into two parts, Chiang said.

“The first part (is) mainly religious songs, especially from our 500 years of tradition. It ranges from Gregorian chant from the First century to Renaissance motet, through baroque to Viennese classic like Haydn and Mozart,” he said.

“The second part, I will open with a polka by Johann Strauss, the so called ‘On Holiday’ polka. With this theme I will bring the audience on a holiday journey through places of different languages like English, Spanish, Croatian, Hungarian, Czech. To add to our journey since we are in America, we will present the song “On the Street Where You Live,” from ‘My Fair Lady.’”