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Each year the festival also welcomes choirs who wish to participate on a non-competitive basis. The nightly Festival Club allows participants to meet informally in a convivial social setting and the opportunity for fun and mingling with other visiting choirs. As well as foreign choirs, the festival annually features up to 100 adult, youth and school choirs who participate in national competitions.
Non-competitive Choirs 2009:
Children's Choir Cantilena, Russia
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The Cantilena Children’s Choir (Diaghilev’s Art School for Сhildren, Moscow) was founded by I. Sarnatskaya in 1967.
The Choir is considered to be the laureate of Moscow and International Art Festivals.
The Cantilena Choir is constantly performing at the best concert halls in Moscow including: The Big and S. Rakhmaninov’s Halls of Conservatoire by P. Chaykovsky, the Concert Halls of Moscow International Music House, and the Church Works’ Hall of the Church of Jesus Christ.
“Cantilena” has recorded 2 CDs of works of the Russian and Foreign composers, folk and church music as well as modern pieces. It’s the choir of 10 – 18 aged children.
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The choir has successfully competed in a number of competition including:
1995 Russia, Moscow: 4. International Slavonic Assembly “Druzhba” (the second prize winner)
1998 Italy, Riva-del-Garda: 5. International Choirs’ Competitions (the first prize winner, “The Golden Diploma”)
2008 Austria, Graz : 5. World Choir Games (“The Golden Medal”)
They also regularly go on guest tours and visit international festivals, including:
1996 Denmark, Copenhagen: 12 concerts in the support of Chernobyl’s Disaster for children
1999 The USA, New York, Washington (concerts in the Capitol, “The White House”)
2002 Netherlands, Amsterdam (the Second International Festival of Choral Music)
2006 Germany, Munich (a number of concerts)
In addition, the Cantilena Choir has made a number of concert tours throughout Europe visiting countries such as Bulgaria, Austria, Poland, France, Italy, Czech Republic and others.
Directors: Irena Sarnatskaya & Helena Saliuk
Piano accompaniment: Vladimir Klyuzhev & Anna Mkrtichyan
Corall Ullastrell, Spain
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Ullastrell, a village 35 kilometers from Barcelona (Catalonia) in the Vallés Occidental area, between the Mediterranean and the Montserrat mountain, has been a place where its people has performed the arts of music and theater as part of their daily life.
The Coral d’Ullastrell was founded by Anna Burgués in 1995 and offered its first concert on April 27th that same year at the local church of Santa Maria. The ensemble consists of 35 singers and its repertoire covers universal works by different authors, styles and periods, especially choral music from Catalonia and South America.
The choir has performed in concerts in Spain, on the mainland as well as on the isles, and has also taken part in exchanges and meetings with other choral groups around Catalonia.
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The ensemble has also participated in the following international festivals:
2004: 7th Alta Pusteria International Choir Festival, Valle Pusteria (Italy).
2005: Concerts at Les Ottignies – Louvain – La – Neuve (Belgium).
2006: X Rassegna Corale Internazionale “Città’ di Genova” (Italy).
2008: 2nd International Folk Choral Music Festival “I Castelli Incantati”, Provincia de Roma (Italy).
At their 10th anniversary the choir performed Faure’s Requiem together with the Agrupació Coral de Matadepera and the Orquesta de Castellbisbal.
Every year the choir organizes and hosts the Trobada Coral Seralavella, a meeting in which other groups are presented.
The Coral d’Ullastrell is an active member of the Catalan Federation for Choral Music (FCMC) and also of the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM).
Its directors have been Anna Burgués, Pablo López Martín, Ferran Campabadal and since 2007 Reinaldo Osorio González.
In 2008 the choir also launched a Children and Youth Choir which has already started to practise.
Ensemble Vocal La Cantiléne, Switzerland
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Ensemble Vocal La Cantilène de Fribourg centres its work on accuracy. The excellent results obtained at many different singing competitions and concerts testify to this. The choir received high marks at the regional choir competition in Châtel-St-Denis in 2004 as well as at ‘Europa Cantat’ in Prague in 2003, where they won third place. The choir is often invited to perform at concerts both in Switzerland and abroad.
Ensemble Vocal La Cantilène received an important repertoire from the region and the land but now it ranges from Renaissance to contemporary music, and features both sacred music and profane a capella music. The choir has enjoyed collaborating with different instrumental orchestras, and also loves to share their pleasure in singing quality music with their audiences.
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Ensemble Vocal La Cantilène de Fribourg was formed in 1976 by Mr Albert Jaquet. In its early years the choir’s repertoire was mainly dedicated to national folk songs. A new, more ambitious repertoire was introduced by Mr Jean-Marie Kolly on his arrival in 1982. Since 2000, the choir has been conducted by Mr Nicolas Fragnière.
Gothenborg Youth Choir, Sweden
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Gothenborg Youth Choir was formed in 2006 and consists of about 30 members. All members of the choir are former pupils of the Brunnsbo School, a state school with special Music Classes, and they have continued singing together in this new choir.
The choir participates in several concerts every year, both on their own as well as together with the Brunnsbo Music Classes.
It is the first time this choir, Gothenborg Youth Choir, is going abroad but the members have previously made concert tours to for example Norway, Iceland, Italy and Hungary.
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Furthermore, the female members have, as part of the Brunnbo Girls’ Choir, participated in two renowned international competitions, “International Youth Choir Festival” in Kalundborg, Denmark (2005) & “Europees Muziekfestival Voor de Jeugd” in Neerpelt, Belgium (2008) and received 1st Prize in both. The choir was formed by Associate Professor Anne Johansson. In addition to being a music teacher at the Brunnsbo School, where she works with the special music classes, she also teaches at the Department of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg.
Anne Johansson has received several prominent awards e.g. as Children-& Youth choir Conductor of the Year (2000), The Johannes Norrby-medal (2005), Cultural awards and the Royal Academy of Music-Educational prize.
I Madrigalisti Di Perugia, Italy
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“I Madrigalisti di Perugia” vocal group was formed in 2008 by singers who matured their musical and vocal experience in various choral realities in Umbria, Italy.
The focus of the group is the study of renaissance and baroque repertoire including madrigals and sacred music, “a cappella” and with “basso continuo”.
Love for polyphonic music and the pleasure in performing pages of indisputable beauty are joined to the desire of executing a repertoire more philologically responding to the performance practice in order to enrich the vocal panorama in Perugia.
The chosen repertoire is that of renaissance and baroque polyphonic music devoting a particular attention to the Italian school.
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In the historical development of these two periods the role of madrigale is significant as the maximum poetical expression in music merging and developing in other dramatic forms as “recitar cantando”. A huge repertoire with still a lot to discover and execute, where the delicate and profound poetry of illustrious literary theorists from 1300s towards all Renaissance gave birth to a musical genre of high expressive level of the human feelings through daring counterpoints and plays imitating sounds and effects.
In the sacred repertoire the comparison between the styles and schools enables the group to approach musical pages with numerous voices exceeding the canonical four voices, in order to propose pieces with charming vocal plot and really fascinating harmonies.
Schola Cantorum 'Voci de Nestore', Italy
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Director: Mauro Chiocci
The choir is composed by students of the first, second and third classes of Piegaro Middle School. The group, currently formed by 25 students, was born in 2003 by a basic choir singing activity over the usual school timetable. Since 2006 the hoir has been introduced in the School Educational Offer, carrying out a part of the singing training during the school timetable and the rest of the activity over the extra-time, for a total of about three hours a week.
The constant commitment of the choir, a group that changes numerically every year, has lead them to a strong preparation on a vocal and musical ground. The moments of live stage singing have proved to be so impressive during the several shows the school organizes, but other fundamental steps were the meeting with other school choirs in national and international festivals, such as:
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2005:
Spring Festival organized by FENIARCO in Riva del Garda
2007:
· National Festival in Vittorio Veneto
· Regional School Choirs Festival organized by S.Anna Foundation in Perugia
· Provincial School Choirs Contest organized by S.Anna Foundation in Perugia: The Piegaro Choir won the First Prize.
· Choir lab activity for choir teachers and directors
· Christmas Concert for USR Umbria at Morlacchi Theatre along with other ten region schools
2008:
· Lab activity for choir teachers and directors
· Regional School Choirs Festival organized by S.Anna Foundation in Perugia
· 70th A.Gramsci’s anniversary show organized by Perugia Provincial Administration
· Regional “In Coro-Incontro Polifonico Umbro” show
· Spring Festival Follonica
The choir’s repertoire ranges from coral treble voices to ancient and modern classical music, pop music and musical comedy.
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