Brno - UNESCO City of Music presents the Year of Choirs

Brno - UNESCO City of Music presents the Year of Choirs

The Brno - UNESCO City of Music Office is launching a multi-year project that aims to map Brno’s amateur music scene. This year will be the Year of Choirs. The biggest event is being prepared for the European Music Day. Several dozen Brno choirs will perform on the stage at the Cabbage (Zelný) Market as part of a large-scale happening.

Brno has been a member of the prestigious UNESCO Network of Creative Cities for seven years, which brings together 301 cities from all over the world that claim a particular cultural field. Brno has been awarded for its activities in the field of music, the extraordinary diversity of its musical programs, the inclusion of music in the city’s development priorities, and its unique connection to the surrounding region with its rich musical tradition growing out of folklore.

“This, our most extensive activity to date, corresponds with the goals of Brno’s membership in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. It aims to make it visible, and to map and recognise the diverse, high quality, and very large amateur music scene,” explains David Dittrich, chief coordinator for the Brno UNESCO City of Music Office, adding: “The project starts this year with the Year of Choirs, followed by years dedicated to the folk scene and the phenomenon of garage bands.”

The biggest event of the Year of Choirs will be a happening on 21 June 2023 at the Cabbage Market. During the afternoon, several dozen Brno vocal ensembles will perform. After the individual performances of the choirs, the event will culminate in the evening finale with a joint singing of one folk and one artificial song composed especially for the occasion.

The Year of Choirs project will introduce smaller and larger choirs, of which there are more than a hundred in Brno and its surroundings. There are academic, school, church and purely amateur choirs in Brno, across all age categories. Singing ensembles such as Kantiléna, Brno Gospel Choir, and the Pečman Academic Mixed Choir kicked off activities related to the Year of Choirs in December 2022 with performances at the Brno Christmas organised by TIC BRNO. Throughout this year, the Brno choirs will be presented and promoted in the form of concerts, informal performances, or meetings of musicians dedicated to choral singing. The Year of Choirs will highlight amateur and semi-professional choirs, their life, functioning, and activities. In addition to the current list of active choirs, a calendar will be created in which choirs will include selected concerts and performances they wish to present.

Kantiléna and Magdalena Kožená/(C) C.E.M.A. / Jiří Sláma, 2013

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