See also
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The following is an incomplete list of choral festivals, which encapsulates music festivals focused on choral music. [1]
| Festival name | Location | Years | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| International Stasys Šimkus choir competition | Klaipėda, Lithuania | 1976–present | Competition is open to mixed, male, female, youth, children‘s choirs, sacred music, vocal ensembles, folk choirs. |
| Festival de Música Coral Renascentista Gil de Roca Sales | Brazil | 2017–present | Choirs performing "a capella" renaissance music in Porto Alegre in honoring the conductor Gil de Roca Sales. |
| Festival de Coros del Fin del Mundo | Ushuaia, Argentina | 2019 - present | International Choral Festival. Concerts, workshops, conferences and forums with professional live broadcastings. |
| American Music Performance Invitational for Mixed Choirs | United States | 2011–present | series of music festivals for top school choirs |
| Cincinnati May Festival | Cincinnati, United States | 1873–present | festival roots go back to the 1840s |
| Cork International Choral Festival | Cork, Ireland | 1954–present | features choirs from all over the world |
| Festival 500 | St. John's, Canada | 1997–2013 | International biennial non-competitive choral music festival |
| Ihlombé! | Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Soweto, South Africa | 2009-present | Organized by Classical Movements [2] |
| Intervarsity Choral Festival (Australia) | Australia | 1950–present | members of university choirs from all state capitals of Australia meet for two weeks |
| InterVarsity Choral Festival (Canada) | Canada | 1949–present | university choirs from Ontario and Quebec, Canada, meet up and perform a combined concert. |
| Corearte Festival | Barcelona, Spain | 2007–present | International Corearte Choir Festival Barcelona , every year in October. |
| Lago di Garda Music Festival | Lago di Garda, Italy | 2007–present | International Festival is non-competitive |
| MasterWorks Festival | Cedarville, United States | 1997–present | month-long summer training program for classical performing artists |
| Nordic Student Singers' Summit | Scandinavia | 1987–present | arranged every third year in a Nordic or Baltic country. |
| Ohrid Choir Festival | Ohrid, North Macedonia | held in the second half of August | |
| PICCFEST | Eugene, United States | 1998–present | treble choir festival held in conjunction with Oregon Bach Festival |
| Three Choirs Festival | United Kingdom | 1719–present | Alternates between three churches |
| Universitas Cantat | Poznań, Poland | 1998–present | International Festival of University Choirs is non-competitive |
| Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival | Europe | 1995–2015 | Music festival for Nordic and Baltic choirs. Nominally biennial, but only eight held in the period. |
| Musica Orbis Prague Festival | Prague, Czech Republic | 2019–present | International festival for non-professional choirs and orchestras, every year at the turn of June and July. |
| World Peace Choral Festival | Vienna, Austria | 2010-present | The festival includes competitive and non-competitive categories |
| Summa Cum Laude Festival | Vienna, Austria | 2007–present | International Festival for Choirs and Orchestras, every year in early July with a competition in the Wiener Musikverein |
| International Habaneras and Polyphony Contest of Torrevieja | Torrevieja, Spain | 1955–present | International annual choral competition held in July specialized in habaneras and polyphony. It also holds a junior contest. |
| World Choir Games | Worldwide | 2000 - present | Largest worldwide choral festival and competition held biennially in a preselected host city, organised by the Interkultur Foundation |
A choir, also known as a chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words is the music performed by the ensemble. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
Helmuth Rilling is a German choral conductor and an academic teacher. He is the founder of the Gächinger Kantorei (1954), the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (1965), the Oregon Bach Festival (1970), the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (1981) and other Bach Academies worldwide, as well as the "Festival Ensemble Stuttgart" (2001) and the "Junges Stuttgarter Bach Ensemble" (2011). He taught choral conducting at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule from 1965 to 1989 and led the Frankfurter Kantorei from 1969 to 1982.
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held annually at the end of July, rotating among the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme. The large-scale choral repertoire is now performed by the Festival Chorus, but the festival also features other major ensembles and international soloists. The 2011 festival took place in Worcester from 6 to 13 August. The 2012 festival in Hereford took place earlier than usual, from 21 to 28 July, to avoid clashing with the 2012 Summer Olympics. The event is now established in the last week of July. The 300th anniversary of the original Three Choirs Festival was celebrated during the 2015 festival, which took place from 25 July to 1 August in Hereford (the landmark 300th meeting of the Three Choirs does not fall until after 2027 due to there being no Three Choirs Festivals for the duration of both World War I and World War II and COVID-19. The 2023 Festival took place in Gloucester from 22nd to 29th July.
Eric Edward Whitacre is an American composer, conductor, and speaker best known for his choral music.
Robert Lawson Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. He was known for drawing public attention to choral music through his wide-ranging influence and mentoring of younger conductors, the high standard of his recordings, his support for racial integration in his choruses, and his support for modern music, winning many awards throughout his career.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.
Herbert Whitton Sumsion was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967. Through his leadership role with the Three Choirs Festival, Sumsion maintained close associations with major figures in England's 20th-century musical renaissance, including Edward Elgar, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although Sumsion is known primarily as a cathedral musician, his professional career spanned more than 60 years and encompassed composing, conducting, performing, accompanying, and teaching. His compositions include works for choir and organ, as well as lesser-known chamber and orchestral works.
Carols for Choirs is a collection of choral scores, predominantly of Christmas carols and hymns, first published in 1961 by Oxford University Press. It was edited by Sir David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, and is a widely used source of carols in the British Anglican tradition and among British choral societies. A second volume was published in 1970, edited by David Willcocks and John Rutter, and the collection is now available in six volumes. A compendium edition was published later. In addition to music for Christmas, the collection also offers works that are suitable for other Christian festivals such as Advent and Epiphany.
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English Anglican choir. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's College, Cambridge, in 1441, to provide daily singing in his Chapel, which remains the main task of the choir to this day.
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs is Australia’s largest choral organisation. It presents its own annual concert series in the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Town Hall, City Recital Hall, and other venues in New South Wales, as well as serving as chorus for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The University of Louisville Cardinal Singers is a choir consisting of between 29 and 40 members, and is the most selective choral ensemble at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Maria Guinand is an internationally renowned choral conductor.
The Cork International Choral Festival is held annually in Cork, Ireland and features choirs from all over the world. About 5,000 choristers take part every year; they come from all over Ireland, from Britain, from the European continent, and sometimes from as far away as Africa, America, and Asia. Since its foundation in 1954, there have been about 3,500 choir entries. The most recent festival took place in May 2024.
The Philippine Saringhimig Singers are a Filipino American choir based in San Francisco, California. In the mid 1980s the choir was also known as the Camerata singers as they toured as a chamber choir throughout Europe
The Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival is an annual event in which members of university choirs from all state capitals of Australia and the national capital Canberra meet for two weeks to rehearse, socialise and perform combined concerts. The Festival also serves as the annual conference of the member choirs of AICSA, the Australian Intervarsity Choral Societies Association
Bradford Festival Choral Society is a choir in Bradford. It was established in 1856 after the opening of St George's Hall and has up to 150 members.
Cecilia McDowall is a British composer, particularly known for her choral compositions.
The Pacific International Children's Choir Festival (PICCFEST) was established in 1998 as a week-long residential event and quickly became regarded as one of the top youth choir festivals in North America, presenting 28 gatherings by its final season in 2023. The gatherings took place each summer, except 2020 and 2021 (COVID19) in Eugene, Oregon, United States, in conjunction with the long-established Oregon Bach Festival. The festival's co-founder and Artistic Director: Peter Robb, a composer and arranger of choral music as well as a conductor. The other co-founders: Genevieve Robb and Rebecca Robb Hicks.
Andrew Keith Wailes is an Australian conductor and music director. Winner of the Australasian International Choral Conducting Competition in Brisbane in 1999, he is the current artistic director and Chief Conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Melbourne University Choral Society, and music director and Conductor of the Box Hill Chorale. From 1999 to 2020 he served as artistic director of The Australian Children's Choir, and for a decade was Director of the Australian Catholic University Melbourne Campus Choir. He is a former president of the Australian Intervarsity Choral Societies Association, and is a former Artistic Administrator and artistic director of The Chamber Strings of Melbourne.
The Zamir Chorale of Boston, founded in 1969, is a choral group that performs Jewish liturgical pieces, major classical works, music of the Holocaust, newly commissioned compositions, and Israeli, Yiddish, and Ladino folksongs. Zamir has been recognized by American Record Guide as “America’s foremost Jewish choral ensemble.” The documentary film Zamir: Jewish Voices Return to Poland, about the Chorale’s 1999 trip to Eastern Europe, was shown across the country on public television stations. Rose of Sharon Winter, Rovi, of The New York Times, called the film “an unforgettable video experience.”