By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Donald Smith and Ryan Slone

West Chester Township singers Donald Smith and Ryan Slone have had brief but thrilling careers as members of the Vienna Boys Choir.

After they finish their 36-city tour with the five-centuries-old choir this month - including a stop tonight with their "Haydn Choir" in Music Hall - Ryan, 12, will return home. Donald, 14, will go back to school in Vienna, and complete his tenure in June.

The two boys, prized for their pure, high voices, were Cincinnati Boychoir members when they joined the Vienna Boys Choir, directed by Gerald Wirth, in December 2001. Since then, they have lived in Vienna's Augartenpalais, the choir's boarding school in a Baroque palace near the Danube River. Only one other American had ever joined the renowned group.

The American boys have learned to eat, sleep and speak in German, and have gotten to know Austrian customs - including the choir's 500-year-old tradition of singing Sunday Mass in Vienna's Imperial Chapel. They've sung "Happy Birthday" to the president of Austria and serenaded the Japanese Crown Prince and Princess during a tour of Japan.

(Cincinnati Boychoir member Andrew Markowich, 11, has left for Vienna, to replace Ryan, whose voice is changing.)

What's your best memory with the Vienna Boys Choir?

IF YOU GO

What: Vienna Boys Choir, Lucio Golino, choirmaster; with Cincinnati Boychoir, Randall Wolfe, director. A program of sacred and classical music, folk songs, Viennese polkas and waltzes from "Waltz King" Johann Strauss II. When: 7:30 p.m. today Where: Music Hall Tickets: $16, $24, $28, 241-7469; Ticketmaster.com or Cincinnatiarts.org

Ryan: Singing in all these great chapels. We sang 50 or 100 times in the Imperial Chapel. It was surprising to see how old these buildings were. It was cool; in America, you can't go anywhere and see something 500 years old and still standing.

Donald: Our summer camp days. I learned to play tennis at camp (in Southern Austria). It was all in German. I'm pretty fluent, but I'm still learning. I can't wait to do the Sunday Masses again. It's something you don't do every day. My favorite is Schubert's Mass in E-flat; it's a really nice Mass.

Ryan, what did you think when your voice started changing? (His voice is surprisingly deep and he's 9 inches taller.)

When I first realized it, I basically freaked out. I had a cold ... but I know a cold can't be so bad that you can barely sing anything. It happened overnight. My roommates were the first ones to notice. At first, no one believed me, because it normally happens gradually. I couldn't even sing the soprano part.

What was it like to live in a palace?

Donald: Before I went there, I always used to make my bed, clean my room, and make my own breakfast. Now, they do that for you. It's a hard adjustment to come home. I'll be sitting eating breakfast and think, "Oh, I have to wash my own dishes."

Ryan: At the beginning, everybody wanted to be friends with us. We were in huge rooms with 12 kids to each room.

This is a long tour: 36 cities in two months. How do you handle that?

Ryan: Mostly, it's sing a concert about every day and then travel on a bus for a long time. But they always make it up to us, by taking us out to play games, or see a baseball game, or have fun. (In New York, they were dining at Hard Rock Cafe and sightseeing.)

Donald: We've had a couple of power outages, and we've had to skip a couple of concerts. Besides the snow and ice, we've had a good time, singing a lot of cool things.

What do you wear on the tour?

Ryan: We have two uniforms: white and blue sailor suits. The blue uniform is for when we're traveling to a concert. We wear white for the concert.

I understand during the Japan tour, you developed quite a female following.

Donald (grinning): I don't know how they got our e-mail addresses. When somebody asks me for my phone number, I leave off the last digit.

Any advice for new choirboy Andrew?

Donald: All of his (school) subjects will be in German. It's really tough. And instead of playing baseball and basketball, you're going to be doing a lot more soccer.

Ryan: I'll tell him to watch out for pranks. ... Everybody was up late one night, and started throwing my covers out the window. My blankets got stuck on the gutters on the floor underneath us, right next to the prefect's room. ... I ran outside to get them and then discovered all the doors were locked. ... I tried to open them, and (the prefect) stood there. It was like, "Ryan, what are you doing out so late?" None of the prefects believed us.

What will you miss about living in Vienna?

Ryan: Speaking German every day. Speaking a different language is pretty neat. Also, the friends I made over there. I'm excited to get back (to Cincinnati) and disappointed that I'm leaving.

Donald: I'm thinking of staying in Vienna after June. I'm going to try out for the Vienna Conservatory. If I make it, I'm going to stay and study there. If I don't, I'm going to come home and relax with my family for my teenage years.

What has the experience meant for you?

Donald: It's been an adventure. I'd say it's the beginning of my life, the beginning of what I want to do. (He has decided to be an opera singer.)

Ryan: It feels like a dream, because it went by so fast.

E-mail jgelfand@enquirer.com