U.S. choirs at the World Choir Games: One Moment in time

They do exist, the moments that change everything. The World Choir Games are full of moments like that. There are so many things you can win: medals, new friends, profound insights, wonderful memories and many uplifting experiences.

When INTERKULTUR brought the World Choir Games to American soil for the first time in 2012 it was a life-changing experience for many choirs in the United States to see choirs from different cultures, specially to see them in different costumes and to hear them singing in foreign languages.

Tim Sharp, former Executive Director of the American Choral Directors’ Association (ACDA) describes in an interview how the World Choir Games can change the mindset of choirs from the United States:

“There is a lot of people up there, but they sound different than us, they’re beginning to sing different literature than us. So, I think it’s an awareness, it’s a brand-new awakening to a bigger picture of what the choirs’ situation in the world is.”

That’s typical for the World Choir Games – they bring musical worlds together and you meet the whole world in one place. You get to know each other and overcome differences, and every singer who takes part ends up knowing that everybody is the same, not different. It’s not a coincidence that these Games are known as the “World” Choir Games. That sounds like an invitation. And it’s meant to be one.

And sometimes even choirs from America get to know each other on really entwined paths. In our new video you will not only see the specifics of American choral singing, but you also get to know Jason Max Ferdinand and Bruce Rogers. Two conductors from the United States, whose story of getting to know each other and becoming close friends is really outstanding. Their story and also the friendship between their choirs culminated in a joint trip to the World Choir Games 2018 in South Africa, where both conductors really wanted to bring their choirs together for this once-in-a-lifetime experience: