It’s taken more than a millennium for a German Catholic school to finally create a girls chorus.

For more than 1,000 years, the Regensburger Cathedral, northeast of Munich, has trained boys choirs. They’re know as the “cathedral sparrows” and are one of the oldest and most famous boys’ choirs in the world. They regularly embark on prestigious international concert tours.

The school says it has no plan to integrate the the two choirs with the girls rehearsing separately from the boys, but adds, all school lessons are integrated.