October brings beautiful sounds to various destinations all over the world. This week choirs will sing in Corfu, next week already 57 choirs from 7 nations will meet in Chiang Mai, Thailand to sing at the 1st Lanna International Choir Competition and compete for the “Lanna Grand Prize 2016”.

The ensembles come from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, for example, but one of them, the Vocal Group Bona Forma even travels roughly 8600 km from Croatia to participate. There are 11 different categories where choirs will perform in front of a 10-headed jury panel of choral experts from 9 countries. They will evaluate the performances and nominate Category Winners as well as other outstanding choirs to sing once again in the final Grand Prize competition for the overall win – endowed with 1.500 Euros.

During the Awards Ceremony all choirs will get their results but only the best of them – Category Winners and Grand Prize Winner – will receive a trophy, which is not only a reward of their win but is also a classical symbol of Thai culture: An elephant sculpture has been installed on the top of the trophy. Elephants are holy animals in Thailand like in many Buddhist cultures. The Thai people worship the elephants as signs of good luck, they symbolize power and grandiosity – what a great reward for the winners!

More information about the program of the 1st Lanna International Choir Competition can be found on the official website.