Summary:

1. World’s choirs back in action at last!
2. Coming up: two Musica sessions in 2021
3. The latest Musica favorite pieces of the month
4. Recent changes in Musica
   • Creating new records
   • Your own private field in Musica
5. Help us develop the theme for a concert This month’s keyword: “Climate change”
6. Fund drive 2021
7. Volunteers wanted!
8. News from our members
9. Reminders

What a relief it is see the gradual rebirth of choral life all over the world. Visitor traffic to the Musica database fell by over 50% because of the standstill which the pandemic imposed on us all, but now the number of searches has picked up again. Every day, hundreds of visitors use Musica to find ideas for choral repertoire. We warmly encourage everyone to do the same:

WHY WAIT ANY LONGER? TAKE TIME TO LOOK UP THE REPERTOIRE FOR YOUR FUTURE CONCERTS!

Musica is perfect for preparing a concert program. Despite the successive lockdowns, we have not stopped adding to the database, applying the latest user-friendly IT and expanding the options so you can really slake your thirst for new choral works.

You can either visit the Musical International website at www.musicanet.org, or take advantage of special full access privileges through the website of your choral federation, if you belong to one:

- To find repertoire, simply search the database by inputting a subject in the “Keywords or Words of the title” box. Refine your search by using the “More criteria” form to add a period, a text language, a type of choir, a country, etc.

- Discover our multimedia links for the pieces you choose: a page of the score, a video by a good choir, text, translations, correct pronunciation, and more.

- Find biographical information on a composer (for instance click on the tab “Composers” in the search form on the homepage), and see which of their choral scores are described in Musica.

- Once a month, listen to our “favorite piece”, “THE” piece to take with you to a desert island.

- Have a blast browsing the “Auditorium”, with its thousands of links to videos and audio recordings of great performances.

After so many months of frustration, we are delighted that we can now organise Musica sessions again.

A Musica session is nothing less than a workshop involving composers, publishers, documentalists, music librarians and choir directors who want to improve their knowledge of Musica and take an active role in promoting the choral heritage. Anyone with a skill that can help Musica to progress (translation, reading of texts in your mother tongue, etc.) is also welcome.

Working in a friendly and enriching atmosphere, participants improve Musica in quantity and quality with works of their choice. Those who take part always find these intense times of sharing and focusing on the choral repertoire to be extremely useful and rewarding.

a) an international session: from 25 to 30 October 2021 at the University of Strasbourg.

→ Full details

b) a session devoted mainly (but not only) to Swiss choral music: from 19 to 21 November 2021 in Lausanne. Contact : celine@choeur.ch

And please do get in touch if you think you might be able to organize one or more sessions in your own country.

Don't forget to visit our favorite piece every month - the piece no choral conductor should be without on a desert island: www.musicanet.org

The six most recent pieces:

- October 2021: Lacrimosa by Calixto Alvarez (Cuba)

- September 2021: O Magnum Mysterium by Ivo Antognini (Switzerland)

- August 2021: Indodana by Michael Barrett and Ralf Schmitt (South Africa)

- July 2021: Prière du soir by Charles Gounod (France)

- June 2021: Death on the Hills by Edward Elgar (England)

… and visit our month-by-month archive of favorites going back to February 1998

Or you can reach them from our Facebook page.

Even at the worst of the health crisis, the team in Strasbourg never stopped its work of inputting records of scores. However, there was a significant slowdown in inputting via the internet. Now that choirs are gradually coming back to life all over the world, we are confident that the remote inputting rate will soon return to normal. Everyone is welcome to take part in this collaborative task.

Just get in touch!

You can now MANAGE YOUR OWN CHORAL HOLDINGS without needing to input all the data yourself. Just sign up for a “private field” in the Musica database and take advantage of all the information we already have, and all the power of our IT tools, to build up your own catalogue by simply adding your locations in your private field. The field will normally be accessible and visible to you alone, but you can also choose to share it more widely.

Just get in touch!

Starting with this month’s MusicaMail, we will regularly give you a keyword and invite you to send in suggestions for choral works which are a good match for it. Where we already have a record for the pieces you suggest, we will add the keyword if necessary; otherwise, if we have sufficient information on a piece that is not yet in the database, we will create a new record – or better still, why don’t you do this yourself!

This month’s keyword: “Climate change”

A term that was still relatively rare not so long ago, but which is now on everyone’s lips, is climate change (or global warming).

So far, just one record contains this keyword:
Fire and Ice, by Greg Bartholomew (USA), which the composer himself input online a few months ago.

Since this was not a common topic back when Musica began (some 40 years ago!), we are sure you must have many pieces to suggest that we could link to climate change.

Please email your contributions to librarian@musicanet.org, and our music librarian Pierre-Luc Pfrimmer will ensure they are dealt with properly.

Alternatively, you can add comments to the item published on 11 October on our Facebook page, where you can also see how things develop in real time.

We are grateful for all contributions, so don’t just leave it to others to get involved. This is your chance to help build an interactive MusicaMail project.

Support Musica in its scientific approach to the repertoire

The 2021 fundraising campaign has begun!

We count on your generosity to help Musica International, a non-profit organisation, continue its work. To do this, visit https://www.musicanet.org/en/gift-page/

Since the start of the pandemic, the revenue flows so crucial for Musica’s survival have slowed. This is largely because many of our supporters – chiefly publishers and choral federations – are themselves struggling with the consequences of the health crisis.
This is why our 2021 fund drive is so important!

In token of our appreciation, we are offering donors full and unrestricted privileged access to all the information on our site, and in particular to the multimedia virtual library.

If your gift is tax-deductible in your country, please just ask for a receipt.

WE’RE COUNTING ON YOU!

Musica International was started and is still run by a team of volunteers with the support of two or three salaried posts (such as a web developer and a music librarian). It is now time for the old hands to pass the baton to a new, younger team of people who are just as enthusiastic about sharing and promoting choral music around the world. Perhaps you’d like to take part in this skilled project. We are looking for choir directors and documentalists who can help to expand our database, but also TRANSLATORS into English, German, French and Spanish, a GRAPHIC DESIGNER to revamp our visuals, a COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER to raise awareness of the project, and more… If you feel able to join our large and happy family, even if only from time to time, please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you!

We are also looking to establish a network of NATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS in all countries. Why not you? Even if you’re unavailable to do this yourself, perhaps you know someone who could – in your national choral federation for example. As Musica International is an academic project, it could be a wonderful opportunity for a university professor, a music librarian or similar.

IFCM announces its Fifth International Competition for Choral Composition to promote new works in choral music and encourage innovation in choral writing which fits the needs of a 21st-century choir. We are looking for compositions that combine originality, imagination and creativity in the context of contemporary global themes.

Rules and regulations

Deadline for applications: 15 January 2022

Lisbon, Portugal, 3-7 September 2022: http://worldchoralexpo.com/

For the second time, The Singing Network is partnering with IFCM to present Exchange! as part of the World Choral Expo 2022.

A great opportunity to discover Namur’s new Grand Manège concert hall!
Around 40 choirs in the regional federation will also be giving mini-concerts all over the city.

All details coming soon at https://www.namurenchoeurs.be

Choral Conference & Festival: Reimagine, Rebuild, Reconnect.
If you can make it in person, you just have to be in Toronto!

All details: https://www.podium2022.ca/index.html

CALL FOR HIGHLY PROFICIENT CHILDREN’S AND YOUTH CHOIRS

Website: https://www.ejcf.ch/ – Email: info@ejcf.ch

HELP TO REFERENCE YOUR CHORAL HERITAGE ONLINE!
Musica International is a collaborative project that is run “by” and “for” people involved in choral singing. We need volunteers who want to share their passion with the choral community by taking an active part in the project. Do not hesitate to contact us at office@musicanet.org.

Are you responsible for a choral federation? We offer global privileged access to musicanet.org for all your members, from “your” website! An advantage which your choir directors will thank you for: Global Privileged Access.

This newsletter may also interest your friends. Do not hesitate to distribute it widely, and invite them to subscribe for MusicaMail.