A singing festival for everyone
From May 9 to 13, 2018, around 2,000 children and teenagers will meet in Basel and the region.
Young people singing together. For the 11th edition, the European Youth Choir Festival Basel has invited outstanding young choirs from ten European countries as well as a guest choir from South Africa. Over 40 high-quality choir concerts and a packed supporting program for all singing enthusiasts will turn the Ascension Day festival into a great celebration of encounters and music.
For the eleventh time, the European Youth Choir Festival Basel brings together a selection of the best children's and youth choirs in Europe and seven young choirs from Switzerland. The choirs selected by an artistic committee come from Denmark, Finland, France, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain and Hungary. From Switzerland, the yodeling choir jutz.ch, incantanti from the
Bündnerland, Zik'Zag from Fribourg, the chamber choir from Muttenz High School and the host choirs Knaben- und Mädchenkantorei Basel and the Vivo youth choir from the Music Academy. The Drakensberg Boys Choir from South Africa with its 55 boys will set a special accent. It has been invited as a guest choir from overseas
and won over the jury with rousing performances and great musical skills.
Shosholoza
The world-famous song of the same name from South Africa means "courageously looking forward". The festival organizers have also set themselves this goal for the current edition of the successful festival and have invented a whole series of new concert formats. For example, the 800 singers will meet after the
Opening concerts for the first rendezvous by candlelight and singing together in the open air. Later, performances that break all concert rules and bring singing into everyday life and those that allow the audience to help shape the program in a playful way entice the audience. On Saturday, the
audience in a "parade à l'envers" through all the singers lining the streets. Another new idea is the "youth choir ship". Singing workshops and events on the musical-cultural background of the Portuguese and Finns are offered on one-and-a-half-hour round trips. A special focus is placed on
the special concert "Swiss Songbridge". Following an international concept, the choirs from French-, Romansh- and German-speaking Switzerland put on a concert with many songs sung together, including three new compositions by Stefan Furter, Fabien Volery and Gion Andrea Casanova.
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- Photo: Sara Meier
- EJCF 2014: Singe uf dr Strooss - Münsterplatz
A festival for the population
The Youth Choir Festival can traditionally count on a great deal of support from the local population. Over 40 cooperation partners help to organize the festival, 800 volunteers are involved in the event, including 250 host families who provide accommodation for the 500 foreign guests. A supporting program promotes young talent
and gives 1500 children and young people from all over Switzerland the chance to present themselves in one of the three local matinees or to experience a singing day on the theme of "Africa" or "ABBA" together with the choirs from South Africa and Sweden. Festival director Kathrin Renggli says: "Elite is only created in
consistent promotion of the grassroots. The uniquely high standard at the Basel Festival is directly linked to the offer for the singing youth of Switzerland and the support of the population. Internationally, too, we must make a commitment to young, ambitious choral conductors if musical ability is to remain a value in the future.
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- Photo: Guido Schärli
- EJCF 2016: Cor Infantil Amics de la Unió, Spain
Financing
The Youth Choir Festival can count on financial support from the Federal Office of Culture for the current cultural dispatch until 2021. Together with the equal contributions from the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, the federal government is making it possible to hold this year's festival. Festival President
Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter explains: "The Confederation's recognition is based on the one hand on the contribution the festival makes to the cohesion of the language regions in Switzerland and to the promotion of young singers, and on the other hand on the high international reputation that the festival enjoys in professional circles."
Additional support comes from numerous foundations and sponsors in kind. This time, the festival can count on a media partnership with SRG SSR and the Basellandschaftliche Zeitungthe Swiss Music Newspaper and numerous other specialist media.
Advance ticket sales start on Monday, March 19, 2018.
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- Photo: Guido Schärli
- EJCF 2016: Female Academic Folk Choir, Bulgaria
