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Table of Contents

1. Editorial
2. Repertoire for Children’s Choirs
3. Participate in the Development of a New Concert Theme
4. Reminder: "Global Privileged Access" to the Musica International Website
5. The latest Musica International "Favorite Pieces of the Month"
6. News and Upcoming Events from Our Members
7. Reminders

1. Editorial

You have surely noticed that the frequency of "MusicaMail" issues is only quarterly. However, the work at Musica International is a daily one, and it is almost entirely devoted to the enrichment and improvement of the choral repertoire database, to best serve those who are searching in it. The ultimate goal is the content of the database, accessible through the use of a very sophisticated and user-friendly search protocol. 
This goal is also reflected in the content of our newsletters. The articles in this edition clearly show our desire to offer you a service focused on the "repertoire", as well as our wish for interactivity and collaboration with its readers and the active choral community. They also reflect the need to find musicians among you who wish to contribute their expertise to the development of this universal tool. 
Musica was created in the 1980s by a team of volunteers, choir conductors, and music librarians who were eager to share their enthusiasm for discovering repertoire by creating this tool. It is managed by a non-profit organization. It is just as important that this journey continues with the participation of volunteers, with their possibilities, alongside with publishers and composers directly interested in promoting their choral works. Without the participation of volunteers over so many years, the project would never have come into being in the first place.
And you? ➡️ office@musicanet.org

 
Jean Sturm
Executive Director of Musica International

In order to best catalog choral music from around the world and provide access to all choral musical culture, Musica International not only offers descriptions of scores for mixed-voices and equal-voices adult choirs, but also describes children's choirs at all levels. A search for the criterion "children" in the "type of choir" field of the database on www.musicanet.org returns 14,000 results, which can be combined with many other criteria to design your future program, for example, by adding a theme and a language.

We are looking to expand the repertoire for this type of choir. If you are involved with this repertoire, do some searches in Musica… and contact us at librarian@musicanet.org to help us enrich our database with children's choir pieces you know and appreciate that are not yet listed. We will then create their entries, as long as we have the necessary information. If not, we will get in touch with you or grant you permission to add them directly to the database.

For this theme, "The Colors of the Rainbow", there are already many responses to be found on www.musicanet.org: but this theme is broad enough for you to contribute (and if you are a composer, feel free to propose your compositions).

For example, searches under "Keyword or title word" already show:

• "rainbow": 220 results;
• "red" : 270 results;
• "yellow" : 50 results;
•  etc. .

By using the "More criteria" search form in the database, you can refine the search by adding language, choir setting, etc. Let your imagination find keywords related to colors and what they represent to you, to further diversify and personalize your concert program (ex: red ↔️ poppy, etc.)!

For the keyword "rainbow", here are a few titles that caught our attention (with links to the detailed records in Musica) :

• Arc-en-ciel, by André Ducret
• Arc-en-ciel, by Bernard Schulé
• Like a Rainbow, by Bob Chilcott
• I've Got the World on a String, by Stephen Zegree
• Rainbow, by Laurent Beeckmanns
• Arco Iris, by Modesta Bor
• Regenbogen, by Francesco Milita
• The Rainbow Fairies, by Vytautas Miskinis
• Over the Rainbow, by Audrey Snyder
• Rainbow Covenant, by Reijo Kekkonen
• Keshet I'vana (A White Rainbow), by Yosef Hadar
• The Rainbow, by Benjamin Britten
• Raduga / Rainbow, by Alexandre Gretchaninov
• L'album à colorier (8th part = "Rainbow"), by Jean Absil
• O Love, by Elaine Hagenberg

Please email your contributions to librarian@musicanet.org. Our Music Librarian Pierre-Luc will ensure they are followed up properly.

Alternatively, you can add comments to the post concerning this theme on our Facebook page.

4. Reminder: "Global Privileged Access" to the Musica International Website

Choral federations that are members of Musica International have the advantage of being able to offer all their members (you?) privileged access to our website www.musicanet.org, automatically and for free from their own website.

What you get:

• Access, "without limitation on the number of items" to the detailed descriptions of more than 200,000 choral scores, including the publisher, duration, key, instrumentation, keywords, levels of difficulty for both choir members and choir conductors, etc.;
• Access to the "auditorium," the list of audio and video files of many works referenced in the database, sorted alphabetically by composer;
• A list of composers with a jubilee anniversary in the next 4 years;
• The list of all selected monthly “Favorite Pieces of the Month” since 1998;
• Etc.

As a reminder, the list of active or contributing members of Musica International can be viewed from the main menu of https://www.musicanet.org.

If you don't find yourself on this list, please check the "members’ area" on your federation's website for privileged access to Musica International. If you can't find it there, ask them to contact us at office@musicanet.org.

If you're not (yet) a member of a partner federation, you can obtain limited access by registering directly at www.musicanet.org, or enjoy unlimited personal privileged access by making a donation!

5. The latest Musica International "Favorite Pieces of the Month"

Every month, Musica publishes a Favorite Piece – a score that every conductor should take with him/her to the proverbial desert island.

The three most recent pieces are:

  February 2025

Talvi-Iltana 

by Jussi CHYDENIUS (Finland)

  January 2025

  December 2024

Magic is The Christmas Day 

by Carsten GERLITZ (Germany)

➕ Visit our month-by-month archive of favorites going back to February 1998.
➕ You can also find recent favorites on our Facebook page.

6. News and Upcoming Events from Our Members

➕ Federació Catalana d'entitats Corals (FCEC)

10th "International 'Catalunya' Choral Composition Prize".
The works will be performed at Choral Music Fest on March 1, 2026, at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona (Spain).
More information: https://ifcm.net/news/995/federacio-catalana-d-entitats-corals--catalunya-prizes-for-choral-compositions-2025#cont

➕ International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM)

The "World Youth Choir" is calling for singers for the summer session 2025.
July 13 – August 1 2025 (Spain and France)
More information: https://ifcm.net/news/1003/world-youth-choir-calls-for-singers-for-the-2025-wyc-summer-session--13-july-----1-august-2025-#cont

➕ American Choral Directors Association (ACDA)

National Convention

March 18-22 2025, in Dallas – Texas (USA)

More information: https://acda.org/archives/events/2025-national-conference

➕ European Festival of Young Choirs of Basel (Switzerland) 

May 27 – June 1 2025, in Basel

The festival is a platform for concerts and meetings for high-level children's and youth choirs. The goal of the festival is to bring young people together across all borders and discover new horizons together.

More information: https://www.ejcf.ch/en/ et https://www.facebook.com/jugendchorfestival/

➕ Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition

June 6-10 2025, in Marktoberdorf (Germany)

More information: http://modfestivals.org

➕ Sulasol Tampere Vocal Music Festival
June 11-15, 2025, in Tampere (Finland)
More information: https://tamperevocal.fi/en/

➕ Chorverband Vorarlberg

International Vocal Week 2025
July 6-13 2025, in Götzis (Austria)
More information: https://www.chorverbandvlbg.at/
 

➕ European Choral Association - Europa Cantat   and   Estonian Choral Association

Leading Voices 2025 - European Days for Vocal and Choral Leaders

July 6-10 2025, in Tallinn (Estonia)

More information: https://europeanchoralassociation.org/leading-voices/

➕ Federació Catalana d'Entitats Corals (FCEC)

60th Barcelona International Choral Music Festival

July 7-13 2025, in Barcelona (Spain)

More information: https://www.fcec.cat/60festival-eng

➕ European Choral Association - Europa Cantat

European Youth Choir 2025

July 16-28 2025, in Valencia (Spain)

More information: https://europeanyouthchoir.org

➕ Koor en Stem

International Singing Week

July 12-18 2025, in Ghent (Belgium)

More information: https://www.koorenstem.be/en/international-singing-week-ghent 

➕ À Cœur Joie 
XXV Choralies in Vaison-la-Romaine
July 30, 2025 – August 7 2025, in Vaison-la-Romaine (France)
More information: https://choralies.fr/en/

➕ Nova Scotia Choral Federation

Adult Choral Camp
Date: August 18-23 2025, in Berwick (Canada)

More information: https://nscf.ca/sing-summer-choir-camps/adult-choir-camp/
(for the "youth" and "junior" choir camps, August 10-16, 2025, see: https://nscf.ca/sing-summer-choir-camps/youth-choir-camp/ et https://nscf.ca/sing-summer-choir-camps/junior-choir-camp/)

➕ FENIARCO

13th European Academy for Choral Conductors

August 24-31 2025, in Fano (Italy)

➡️ Application deadline: May 31, 2025 (form available soon).

More information: https://www.feniarco.it/en/projects/13th-european-academy-for-choral-conductors

➕ Public Fund of the Republic of Slovenia for Cultural Activities

Gallus-Maribor International Choral Competition
October 17-19, 2025, in Gallus-Maribor (Slovenia)
More information: https://www.gallusmaribor.si/en/

• Help actively 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. You can do this in many ways, such as inputting and checking records, translating, assisting with communication tasks. Contact us at office@musicanet.org.

• You can now manage your own choral library 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 - all the power of our IT tools to build 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 scores from your library more widely. Contact us at office@musicanet.org.

• Are you responsible for a choral federation? We offer global privileged access to www.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.

• We are also looking to establish a network of national correspondents in all countries. Why not you? Even if you are unavailable to do this yourself, perhaps you know someone who could – someone in your national choral federation, for example. As Musica International is an academic collaborative project, this could be a wonderful opportunity for a university professor, a music librarian, a conductor, a singer, or anyone interested in the choral art.

➡️ This newsletter may also interest your friends. Do not hesitate to distribute it widely and invite them to subscribe at: https://www.musicanet.org/en/musica/newsletter/.

Musica International

https://www.musicanet.org
office@musicanet.org

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