The choir teacher who tunes souls – where children learn to sing and to live
For forty-three years, Klára Herpainé Velkey has been teaching Hungarian literature and music at the Fényi Gyula Jesuit High School, College and Kindergarten in Miskolc. The children who join her choirs gain far more than confidence on stage — they receive guidance for life. We accompanied the award-winning teacher - recognized with the MOL – New Europe Foundation’s Master-M Award, and her students to the first stop of their nationwide tour.
Klára founded the Magis Choir more than twenty years ago, and in 2013 she created the smaller Fényi Chamber Choir within it. With them she performs one musical every year. In recent seasons she has staged works such as Ignatius, the knight of souls, The Wizard of Oz, and Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat. This year they chose The Stars of Eger (ed.note: a musical based on the famous historical novel of Géza Gárdonyi about the 1552 siege of Eger, in which the castle’s warriors triumphed against overwhelming Ottoman forces). The students have been familiarizing themselves with the piece since December, but the actual collaborative work began only in February — a miracle in itself, given that this two-act, three-hour historical musical has 54 scenes and features 110 children.
Their tour opens in Tiszafüred. When we arrive, the final rehearsal before the premiere is already in full swing at the local cultural center. Teenagers are singing and dancing in the courtyard while Turkish music plays in the background. On stage, Jumurdzsák is just abducting little Jancsika from his playmates.
“This is the first time we’ve gathered since graduation,” Klára begins. The past days have been intense: rehearsals, interviews, organizing the tour — all the while she anxiously awaited her seniors’ final exam results. “One of the lead actors wrote his advanced-level Spanish exam this morning, and now he’s here.”
She treats them as colleagues
When I watched Klára’s introduction video, one question immediately came to my mind: how does one manage so many students — especially teenagers? Watching the rehearsal, we soon discovered the secret.
“In the choir we have smaller groups we call workshops, and each has a workshop leader,” Klára explains. “They are students who have been with the choir for a long time, so I can confidently entrust them with responsibilities.” In The Stars of Eger nine workshops and nine character groups appear: the warriors, the janissaries, the free folk, the Amazons, the enchantresses, the doubters, the loyal, the destined, and the children.
Each workshop represents a type of personality with its own strengths and limitations. The warriors are loyal but prone to overcommitting; the janissaries show little emotion but follow rules strictly. “First I describe each type in detail, and the students choose the one that best matches their current stage in life. They usually end up in that workshop. In a way, they are playing themselves — which helps them understand and get to know themselves better,” Klára explains.
Once the workshops are formed, she uses community-building games to bring the members closer. The choir rehearses every Tuesday after classes and also holds monthly choir weekends — intensive creative sessions when they stay together, eat together and sleep in the school gymnasium.
According to Klára, the greatest value of their productions is that the young people create everything themselves.
“I only set them on stage,” she says. “Some of them dance at a professional level — they take the lead in developing the choreography.
“I don’t believe in hierarchical teacher–student relationships. We are colleagues working together.
The final production is a shared creation. Sometimes I grumble, but they’re just as free to express their dissatisfaction.”
While Klára checks one of the scenes, we step outside to talk to a few students. A cheerful group of girls — the enchantresses, the sultan’s harem women — volunteer enthusiastically.
“She is very caring, like a grandmother with her grandchildren, yet she can be strict when needed,” says twelfth-grader Borka Sára Szalay. Final-year student Vince Posta shares similar thoughts: “Klári néni is very determined, but she’s also like a mother hen — she pays attention to each of us individually. She doesn’t just see the student — she sees who we truly are.”
Even the shy ones open up
Klára is incredibly proud of her students, who join the choir voluntarily. Some are shy, others inexperienced in choral singing — but she never turns them away. She gives them time and space to become comfortable.
“Some choose to stand in the back row at first; for others a simple smile is enough encouragement. From performance to performance, I see how they open up,” she says.
This happened to Vince, who plays István Dobó (ed.note: the captain of the Castle of Eger). “I sang in choirs and music school throughout primary school, so I joined here as well. Singing with others has always lifted me up, though singing alone was hard for me. But that slowly changed. Klári néni always encouraged us to dare to step into the center of the stage and pull the others with us — then success is certain,” he recalls. He first performed in ninth grade; a year later he had a leading role in The Wizard of Oz. “At the beginning I didn’t dare open up even to my choir mates — now I can talk easily with them and with others as well.”
Every senior receives at least one short solo.
Alongside some final-year boys, newcomers — including two eighth-graders — are responsible for sound engineering, and alumni also return to help. “The performers want me cheering them on from the wings, so it’s a big help that former students take on some of this work,” Klára says. She is also grateful to music director Edina Orosz Tokár, who helps the students learn the songs and improve their singing.
Shared prayer, shared future
All four year groups of the high school are represented in the choir. “In the workshops we get to know each other better — something we don’t always have time for in school,” says senior Jázmin Boncsér. The choir members, she says, really do “grow together.” “After graduation, the seniors still meet up — some even rent apartments together afterwards.”
Last year’s musical was performed twenty times — at their own school, at other high schools and elementary schools, and at city events. When choosing tour locations, Klára also considers where her students come from.
“We perform in several places across the country because many of us live far from Miskolc,” Jázmin explains. “That’s why we’re here in Tiszafüred, and why we’ll be in Budapest too. When we performed Ignatius, we even appeared at the Erkel Theatre. I was only in ninth grade then — it was incredible to stand on a stage where great artists perform.” She also loves the choir weekends: “At night Klári néni sends us to sleep by drawing a small cross on our foreheads.”
Klára treasures many memories — for example, the night before the final show of last year’s tour, when the whole group gathered: “After the last performance, the seniors stood before the others and encouraged them to persevere until the very end. Their emotional speech made the ninth-graders cry too — and the seniors asked, puzzled: ‘Why are you crying? You still have three more years!’”
I ask Klára whether she has noticed changes in young people over the past forty years. “We live in a different world, but I address them the same way I did earlier generations — and it still works.” She has, however, noticed changes in herself: “My students have influenced me too, not only I them. I pay even closer attention to the more sensitive children now. And because I lead such a large group, I’ve had to become more precise, planning further ahead.”
Klára excuses herself — the musical begins in a few minutes, and she is the one introducing it. On stage, the workshops present themselves, then the performance continues with striking scenes and catchy songs. We must leave after the first act, but all the way home I can still hear István Dobó’s voice in my ears, and I still see the enthusiastic young faces:
“Time drifts by like the light
summer clouds,
but to deny the past
is the coward’s choice.
Stay Hungarian,
beautiful and free!”
This article was written with the professional support of the MOL – New Europe Foundation.
The English translation was produced with large language model and reviewed by a human editor.
