MUSIC : Young Voices on High at the Crystal Cathedral

Long before Americans got the idea of dressing up their grade-school graduates in cap and gowns, the Brits decked their youngsters in black top hats, gowns and Eton suits.

Well, some of their youngsters, that is--actually, only those lucky enough to have won auditions to get into such choirs as the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, which sings Friday at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

The choir traces its origins back to the maybe Merrie Olde England days of Henry VI in 1441. At that time, and for hundreds of years afterward, women in Europe were not permitted to sing in church choirs. So boys provided the soprano and alto parts. Men would take the bass and tenor parts, as usual.

The youngsters received exceptional musical training, and composers did not feel constrained to write limited or simple-minded music for them. Bach, for instance, composed his 250 cantatas and several Passions for boy sopranos, and the complexity and length of his vocal lines for them remain challenging for the professional women singers of our day.

But don’t think the boys at King’s were allowed to get swell-headed and spoiled. For the first 400 years or so, they also doubled as waiters in the college dining room at night.

There will be no Bach on the Friday program, which will range from 16th- to 20th-Century British music (from William Byrd to Benjamin Britten), with stops off in the 19th Century to pick up some German repertory.

Today, the boy choristers, as they’re called, study at a school half a mile from King’s and march to classes silently, according to custom.

“We exist to sing services in the chapel each day,” says Stephen Cleobury, who took over as director in 1982. (He had also been a boy singer, but at Worcester Cathedral, not at King’s.)

The current choir is made up of 16 choristers and another 16 “choral scholars,” or graduates whose voices have changed and who have come back to sing the lower parts.

“Most of the choral scholars have grown up as choristers in cathedral and collegiate choirs and are chosen for their musicianship,” Cleobury says.

One of the returning choristers is organist Christopher Hughes, 21, who sang at King’s when he was a boy, then went off to Eton on a music scholarship. Hughes will provide accompaniment for the choir and also give several organ solos. As are his fellow singers, Hughes is multitalented.

“In addition to singing, (the choristers) all learn two instruments, usually piano and some orchestral instrument,” says Cleobury. “Sometimes they learn three.”

Most do not go on to make professional careers in music, however, he says. And of course, because the boys’ voices change in their early teens, he deals with a constant turnover in the choir.

“That’s always a challenge because I always have fresh new blood coming in,” he says. “But it also means that I can’t ever stand still.”

What: The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, England.

When: Friday, Sept. 13, at 8:15 p.m.

Where: Crystal Cathedral, 12141 Lewis St., Garden Grove.

Whereabouts: Take City Drive exit from the Santa Ana Freeway to Chapman Avenue. Turn right on Chapman to Lewis Street and turn left.

Wherewithal: $8 to $12.

Where to Call: (714) 971-4150.