Determination to overcome barriers shown by attendees at 1st UK international youth choral festival

June 17, 2013 - PRLog -- Concerned by the lack of choral music in Brazil’s schools and the availability of music suitable for children, Ana Lúcia Gaborim, Professor of Music Pedagogy at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, is attending the UK’s first international youth choral festival, Worcester International Festival for Young Singers. Through the week-long festival of public concerts, street singing and workshops culminating in a Gala Concert at Worcester Cathedral on 26th July, she hopes to learn from the teaching, organisation and collaborative approach demonstrated by the four international conductors, and eleven choirs from ten nations that are taking part.

Ana Lúcia conducts a children’s choir at her local church, is about to launch a children’s choir at the University and has run social projects for children in São Paulo. She says “It is a dream for me to come to England. Visiting WIFYS will help me to improve my own conducting techniques and grow as a music professional so that I can then share my knowledge with teachers and choirs back home. Some of the children I have worked with are so poor, belonging to a choir means so much to them.”

The determination shown by Ana Lúcia has been demonstrated by many of the choirs visiting the Festival. The Comunidad de Madrid Youth Choir tried to raise funding from regional and national bodies to finance their visit. Turned down by every organisation they approached and cautioned that the trip wasn’t appropriate in times of austerity, the choir refused to be defeated and set about raising funds locally and from the parents of the students.

Malcolm Goldring, WIFYS Artistic Director, was in touch with the British Embassy in Moscow to verify that Ozarenie Chamber Choir and April Girls Choir were participating. He says “The young people from the visiting choirs have shown such incredible commitment to attending WIFYS and we know that a week of collaborating with each other will benefit them in so many ways. We should be inspired by the determination of these young singers and their choir leaders, particularly at a time when we are seeing cuts in arts funding here in the UK.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

Watch a short video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=of6mojJWpBM

Participating Choirs:

April Girls Choir – Russia

Artemis Girls Choir – Belgium

Comunidad de Madrid Youth Choir – Spain

Domino Children’s Choir – Czech Republic

DO-RE-MI Children’s Choir – Austria

Ozarenie Chamber Choir – Russia

Sacred Heart Canossian College Choir – Hong Kong

Skowronki Girls Choir – Poland

Südpfalzlerchen Children’s and Youth Choir – Germany

Versme Children’s Choir – Lithuania

Young Singers from Worcestershire

Festival Concerts and Events

On Saturday 20th July, the Festival kicks off with colourful Street Singing presentations in the city centre by all the visiting choirs. That evening, the Cathedral will host a special Welcome Concert when each choir will perform a short programme, as well as hear a local choir perform some music by Worcester's very own composer, Sir Edward Elgar. Additionally, the splendid Cathedral organ can be heard in some rather unusual repertoire!

The Gala Concert is on the Festival's final evening, Friday 26th July, again in the Cathedral. Here, each of the four atelier choirs will present some of the music they will have prepared during the week. One of the ateliers will focus on Bob Chilcott's specially commissioned work Five Days that Changed the World, but it has been written in such a way that all the ateliers will be involved in its performance, making use of the Cathedral's wonderful space and acoustics.

Each of the 'Days' relates to an event that changed the world: the invention of printing, the abolition of slavery, the first powered flight, the discovery of penicillin, and the first man in space. With accompaniment for piano and timpani, Bob Chilcott's music is immediately approachable for singers and audiences alike. The text is by the English poet Charles Bennett whose work has been published to wide acclaim in the UK, Europe and America and who has been working with Chilcott for several years including writing the text for last year’s BBC Prom, The Angry Planet. Five Days that Changed the World is an extraordinary work, one that will delight the choirs taking part as well as audiences. It is published by Oxford University Press.

During the week of the Festival, each visiting choir will have the opportunity to present one concert at a venue in Worcester and a second in a town or village elsewhere in the area, each concert featuring two choirs.  In addition, choirs will sing at church services in the area on the morning of Sunday 21st July.

Most concerts are free (although tickets may be required due to seating limitations at some venues). Tickets for the Welcome and Gala Concerts in the Cathedral are on sale via Worcester Live Box Office, Crowngate, telephone 01905 611427. The full listing of concerts in local churches and booking information is available at http://www.singuk.org/wifys/festival-events

http://www.singuk.org/

Sing UK works with partners in the field of education, music and community development to deliver exciting, high quality singing projects in schools and local communities, together with high-profile national events. It works with children and young people, their families, teachers and local authorities throughout the UK to create programmes which suit local needs.

As a Community Interest Company it is a not-for-profit organisation, working to benefit local communities. It is funded through strategic relationships with corporate partners to fulfil shared objectives, and with support from local benefactors, national grant-giving organisations, trusts and foundations.

The team behind Sing UK has many years experience in the field of music education, previously having been associated with the organisation BFYC/youngchoirs, which for twenty four years ran highly successful singing projects and events throughout the United Kingdom. Sing UK engages highly skilled and inspirational singing specialists/practitioners, or 'animateurs', to deliver its mission of bringing high-quality singing opportunities into people's lives, providing fresh and exciting challenges relevant to all stakeholders.

Recent work has included a four-year project in Bedfordshire, "SingQuest", working with every Lower, Middle and Special School in the county to establish a vibrant and continuing culture of singing in schools.

Sing UK has worked on four projects in Worcestershire since 2010 with fourteen of the county's local authority secondary schools, colleges and the University of Worcester. In each project, over two hundred students and their teachers formed choruses to perform major choral works with such orchestras as the English Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Swan, as well as professional soloists, all in Worcester Cathedral.

ENDS