Curious about Bolivian choral music?

The prestigious Escuela Militar de Ingenieria in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, is not only known for excellence regarding the education of military engineers but also for the numerous achievements of its choral ensemble ArteCanto, such as a Silver Diploma at the INTERKULTUR festival Canta al Mar 2015 in Spain.

In 2019 the singers will tour across Europe where they will give concerts in Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy and one of their additional stopovers will be at INTERKULTUR’s 11th International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival and Competition from July 3 - 7, 2019 in Wernigerode, Germany. They will be in good company as currently choirs from 11 other nations, ranging from Latvia to Malaysia, will join the popular choir event located in the historic setting of the nearly 900 years old city in the German mountain region of the Harz region.

Established in 2015, the ensemble transformed into a polyphonic choir in 2017 under the direction of Soprano Giovanna Montaño and decided to take a new direction and interpret Bolivian missionary Baroque music. Jesuit missionaries from Spain and Italy came to South America almost 400 years ago and brought with them classical baroque music. They established missions across central South America where they also taught to play European music and make instruments including the cello, harp and violin. After the Spanish expelled the Jesuits in the 18th century, the baroque-style compositions disappeared but were rediscovered and revived in the 1970s. Watch out for ArteCanto’s interesting performances in Wernigerode and experience the values of choral music from Bolivia!

Registration for the 11th International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival and Competition 2019 in Wernigerode ends on February 11. More information about participation and registration is available here, regular updates can be found on Facebook.