The
Taipei International Choral Festival held its opening carnival at the
National Taiwan Museum on the morning of July 25, inviting the Slovenian St.
Stanislav Girls' Choir led by conductor Helena Fojkar Zupan č i č and the Czech Vokalion Women 's Choir led by Jan
Pirner to perform on site,
singing songs such as " May God Give
Us a Pleasant Night ", " Dawn ", " Waltz ", "When You're Lucky", and " East
Moravian Clover" . The members who
came to Taiwan for the first time happily shared: "We look forward to
sharing the wonderful choral music and our passion for singing with everyone.
We are very much looking forward to meeting everyone at the
concert! " The 2025 Taipei
International Choir Festival kicked off grandly with melodious singing and
the gong-beating ceremony by Huang Hongwen , artistic director of Duhei
and deputy director of the Department of Arts Development of the Ministry of Culture .
The
2025 Taipei International Choral Festival will be kicked off with a
masterpiece full of humanistic care and cross-cultural vision, "Psalm
Oratorio". The work was created by the Slovenian
composer ─ Jubi, and was inspired by the true story of Slovenian
doctor Fan Fenglong who devoted himself to medical treatment in Taiwan
for 38 years. The work "Psalm Oratorio" is divided into
"Hope, Faith, Love, Joy, and Peace". Joby extracted scriptures from
the Psalms of the Bible and fine-tuned them to become the lyrics of each
movement. The music combines local Taiwanese cultural elements with Slovenian
musical and harmonic vocabulary. Starting from the birthplace of the doctor, it
is based on the Gregorian hymn "Hail Queen of Heaven". However, the
bell is not just a sound, but also the starting point of memory and hope. Taiwanese
psalms and aboriginal folk songs are not just languages, but also the echo of
the land and the people. The world premiere was conducted by the composer
himself. The two performances in Yilan and Taipei invited the Taipei
Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Taipei Philharmonic Youth Choir, Taipei
Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and Yilan local teams Sonar Choir and Ichiran
Philharmonic Choir to perform together.
This year's Taipei International
Choral Festival has a strong lineup, with six choirs gathering together, which
is bound to set off an auditory festival of cross-border vocal art. First, the
three top international teams invited to perform in Taipei and various counties
and cities are: the Slovenian
St. Stanislav Girls Choir, whose ethereal and pure voice and expressive tension
are widely praised by the music industry; the Indonesian St. Angel Choir,
composed of young people aged 16 to 25 , has won
the 2023 Tokyo Choir Competition and the 2024 World Choir
Championship. The Salt Lake City Artists Chorus, founded by Dr. Allred, is one
of the top choirs in the United States, performing Broadway, film scores,
spirituals and new contemporary works.
Since the
Taipei International Choir Festival will host the World Choir Championships
in 2025 ,
music fans will have the opportunity to witness the international standard
competition without going abroad. This year's participating teams are: The University of Mindanao Choir in the
Philippines, led by conductor Atencio, was invited to Taiwan for a tour
in 2022 before the pandemic was lifted and received rave reviews. It
also won the championship in the 2024 Taipei
International Choir Competition. The Czech Vokalion Women's Choir won the overall championship
and the Best Conductor Award at the 2024 Rimini
International Choir Competition in Italy. The Hong Kong Diocesan Choir also won
the overall championship in the 2024 Tokyo International Choir
Competition. The three teams will compete for the title of World Choir Champion
at the National Concert Hall on the evening of July 28. In addition, they will also be awarded
the World Choir Champion Cup and a prize of 5,000 Euros.
Since
2018 , the Taipei Philharmonic has also held the Taipei
International Choir Competition (TICC) during TICF . This is the
first official international choral competition in Taiwan. Whether it is the
qualifications of the judges, the groups of participants, or the requirements
of the repertoire, all the details meet international standards. There are nine
groups in total: children, youth, age, male, female, mixed, sacred music, folk
songs and traditional music, and contemporary music. The competition invited
well-known choral masters from home and abroad: Vytautas
Miškinis , Margrethe Ek , Jennifer Tham ,
Ambro ž Č opi , Yu-Wen Pan, Chia -Fen Weng
, Pearl Shangkuan to serve as judges, attracting 42 teams from the Philippines, Indonesia,
Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to register for a total of
72 teams . After the group competition, the jury will nominate and
decide the participating teams for the grand prize competition, and they will
compete at the National Concert Hall for the highest honor of the competition:
the overall champion - the W.O. Bank Grand Prize.
TICF originated
from the Taipei International Choral Music Camp held by the Taipei Philharmonic
Foundation in 1990. In order to cultivate domestic choral talents,
Taipei Philharmonic Art Director Du He invited internationally renowned
conductors and musicians to bring the latest choral concepts to Taiwan.
In 1996 , the Taipei Philharmonic expanded the music camp into a
music festival, introducing outstanding foreign groups and repertoires. In the
past thirty years, TICF has gradually planned more diverse content.
In addition to the "Festival Choir", the music camp currently has a
wide range of courses such as "Conductor Training Class",
"Conductor Master Class" and "Choral Universal Lecture",
which have a profound impact on the development of choral music in Taiwan.
Want to experience the unique style and surging energy of choral art from all over the world up close? From July 25 to August 3, the 2025 Taipei International Choral Festival invites you to enter music venues across Taiwan. Top choral groups from Europe, Asia and America will perform in Taiwan, inviting you to listen to the most exquisite vocal performances in the world. During the ten days, you will travel through a rich repertoire of classical and contemporary, folk songs and creations, and embark on a musical exploration journey that combines senses, emotions and culture. For performance details and ticket purchases, please visit the Taipei Philharmonic official website or the OPENTIX two-hall ticketing system.