The Covid-19 pandemic has been catastrophic for choirs. In many countries, all choral activity has been suspended, with the cancellation of concerts, rallies, festivals, competitions and tours.

But a number of outstanding initiatives are making sure we don’t lose touch with the practice of choral music. One example is the World Youth Choir, which came virtually together online to sing “Until we meet again” on Youtube.

Why not convert your frustration at no longer giving concerts, or even meeting to rehearse, into something good and useful?

The health crisis has temporarily laid off many choir directors, and this has had an impact on their use of tools like Musica. And yet we have not stopped watching out for all the latest from the world of choral music. For example, this newsletter brings you results of composer competitions, and the works concerned are already listed in Musica.

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

• Once a month, listen to our “Favorite Piece”, “THE" piece to take with you to a desert island.
• To find potential 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 time period or a style, 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 competent choir, text, translations, correct pronunciation…
• Find biographical information on a composer, and see which of his choral scores are described in Musica.

Our virtual library describes presently more than 195,000 titles. During the lockdown, we have not stopped expanding this tool, already the fruit of 40 years’ work, and continuing to develop our software. All this to satisfy your eagerness to discover new repertoire, with ever more functions and user-friendliness.

On Sunday 13 December 2020, Musica will be taking part in this initiative of the International Federation for Choral Music to celebrate choir singing around the world. Go to worldchoralday.org.

On that date, we will be opening our site www.musicanet.org to all visitors without restriction – no need even to sign in! Take advantage of this opportunity to discover Musica’s wealth of riches!

Don't forget to visit our favorite piece every month - the piece every choral conductor should take to a desert island: musicanet.org

The last 3 pieces we promoted in this way:

November 2020: “Ich bin das Brot des Lebens” by Wolfram Buchenberg (Germany)

October 2020: Muusika by Pärt Uusbeg (Estonia)

September 2020: A Naí Naoimh' - Holy Infant by Alan Cutts (Ireland)

… and visit our month-by-month archive of favorites since February 1998

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. Working in a friendly and enriching atmosphere, participants improve Musica in quantity and quality with works of their choice.

We were unfortunately obliged to cancel the international session scheduled for the end of October 2020 at the University of Strasbourg.

As soon as the health situation improves and we are allowed to meet, we hope to start organizing events of this kind again. Those who take part always find these intense times of sharing and focusing on the choral repertoire to be extremely useful and rewarding.

Why not think about organizing yourself a Musica session in your country?

The next options in Strasbourg would be from May 2 to 7 or October 25 to 30, 2021. If you’d like to be there, let us know as soon as you can by writing to office@musicanet.org.

More details

Musica International has been nearly 40 years in the making. Now as much as in the early days, it has always been run by a team of volunteers with the support of two or three salaried posts (such as a web developer and a documentalist). 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 at office@musicanet.org.

We are also looking to establish a network of national Musica correspondents in all countries. 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 the perfect undertaking for a university professor, a music librarian or similar.

Over the last few months Musica has seen a drop-off in the revenue it needs to survive, mainly because many of our supporters, especially publishers and choral federations, have themselves been hit hard by the health crisis.

This makes our 2020 fundraising campaign, which we are launching now, all the more important. You can help Musica continue its work by making a donation at musicanet.org/en/gift-page/.

To thank you for your generosity, we are offering you full privileged status, giving you unrestricted access to everything on our site, especially our virtual multimedia library. Donations are tax-deductible in many countries. If you require a tax certificate, just ask.

WE’RE COUNTING ON YOUR SUPPORT!

Reopening of the library of the German Center for Choral Music

(Deutsches Centrum für Chormusik / DCfC)

The DCfC library is rightly known as the “Noah’s Ark” of choral music. With over 375 000 scores that can be consulted on the premises, it is ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHORAL ARCHIVES IN THE WORLD. Certainly worth a visit!

The library recently moved from Limburg to Wetzlar and reopened on 14 September, by appointment, at Siegmund-Hiepe-Straße 28-32 / 35587 Wetzlar an der Lahn; tel. +49 6431 971 7271

Full details at DCfC-Neues_Zuhause.pdf (in German)
And you can visit the DCfC online at www.dcfc.de

Results of the European Award for Choral Composers

https://europeanchoralassociation.org/blog/2020/10/05/european-award-for-choral-composers/

The European Choral Association - Europa Cantat called upon its member organizations all over Europe to submit recently composed pieces of choral music to be entered in an international competition. A jury of internationally renowned conductors and composers – Josep Vila i Casañas (Spain), Seán Doherty (Ireland), Karin Rehnqvist (Sweden), Tadeja Vulc (Slovenia) and Eriks Ešenvalds (Latvia) – selected the following winners (full details of all these works are already in the Musica database):

• Category A (a cappella works): “Amor, io fallo” by Jan Van der Roost (Belgium)
• Category A, special mention: “Sanctus amor” by Hans Helsen (Belgium)
• Category B (works with accompaniment): “Autumn soils” by Maarten Van Ingelgem (Belgium)
• Category B, special mention: “How sweet the moonlight” by Vigdis Hansa Elst (Belgium)

Read the full press release

All the winning pieces will be performed at the Europa Cantat Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2021.

Results of the 1st Nuove Musiche dalla Livenza competition

for new works for equal-voice female choirs and school choirs, which took place during the Venezia in Musica choir festival in Sacile, Italy.

The winning pieces will be issued by Porfiri & Horváth Publishers.

Each work below is followed by a link to the corresponding record in the Musica database. At present the records contain an image file and information about ordering the scores from PH Publishers. They will be expanded as more details come in.

Category A (treble voices)

• 1st place: “Pinocchietto va al palazzo” by Marina Gavelli (Italy) Ref.: PHP 420112
• 2nd place: “Minestrone di filastrocche” by Chiara Mario (Italy) Ref.: PHP 420113
• 3rd place: “Il gioco della speranza” by Paolo Orlandi (Italy) Ref.: PHP 420114

Category B (school choirs)

• 1st place: “Strani e strambi” by Maurizio Santoiemma (Italy) Ref.: PHP 420115
• 2nd place: “Cicerenella, filastrocca popolare italiana” by Annalia Nardelli (Italy) Ref.: PHP 420116
• 3rd place: “Variazioni su Cinco Lobitos" by Paul Ayres (UK) Ref.: PHP 420117

You can now manage your choral holdings without having to input all the data: ask us for a private field in Musica database, where you can store your locations; you can then manage your choral library with full advantage of all the functions and details that are available in Musica. 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. Contact us at office@musicanet.org.

PARTICIPATE IN THE REFERENCING OF YOUR CHORAL HERITAGE, ONLINE! Musica International is a collaborative project, by and for people involved in choral singing. We need volunteers who want to share their passion with the choral community by actively participating in the project. There are many ways you can help. Do not hesitate to contact us at office@musicanet.org.

This newsletter may also interest your friends. Do not hesitate to distribute it widely and invite them to subscribe by going to the musicamail subscribe page.