Lagos City Chorale, Nigeria © Studi43

How to Find the Right Choir Event to Join

What do you need to know to pick the right choral event?

About Choir Singing

A great choir event is a wonderful way to keep your singers engaged. It gets everyone excited, and it makes the entire group work that much harder to get it right.

But if an event is a bad fit for your choir, it can be a miserable experience.

So choosing the right event is paramount. And of course, matching the event to your choir requires doing research. But what do you need to look for to pick the right one?

Below, we’ve put together some of the most important considerations. These can help guide your research. That way, you’ll land on choir events that bring you and your group together!

Find Videos

In the age of YouTube, you should be able to get a sense of how things have gone in previous years of the event. Seeing a video gives you a lot of information right away. The most important is that you can instantly see if it has the right vibe for your group.

There’s no better way to instantly grasp the level of competition, expectations for presentation, and overall quality of the event than with video.

And what better way to spend an afternoon than watching videos of choir singing?

Distance From Home and Scheduling

There is no one right distance to travel for events, and there are plenty of factors that go into this.

Depending on your choir, it might be a good idea to aim for an event close to home. On the other hand, it might be great to go for one in a far away, dream destination.

The three major factors for determining how far away a choir event should be are:

  • Time of year: Are there going to be things competing for your singers’ time? For instance, you might not want to have a large choir traveling near the holidays when many of them will have prior engagements planned.
  • Socioeconomics: Will a big trip be burdensome to some (or all) of your singers? If so, is there a way to create scholarships to help them out?
  • Recent Events: Have you traveled with the choir recently? If not, they might be ready for a big trip together, but if they have, it might be too much added stress.

These are only a few considerations, but they show the kind of thinking that should go into the distance between the event and where your choir calls home.

Many choir leaders will choose to work both kinds of events into their schedule, preferring to switch things up so that their groups get the best of both worlds.

Level of Competition

This is an obvious one. Mismatching competition levels is no fun for anyone. If your choir is too dominant, it makes victory unsatisfying and might taint the overall experience. On the other hand, if the other choirs are significantly better, that doesn’t feel good, either!

Getting the balance right isn’t always easy, because you want to make sure your choir is having to work hard to compete — but you don’t want them to become discouraged.

Using that video research will be key here, but some events, for example the World Choir Games, offer different kinds of competition and different levels to ensure a suitable space for each kind of choir.

How Will Things Be Judged

There are many ways to judge a choir competition, and everyone will have their own preferences. The INTERKULTUR events use the MUSICA MUNDI evaluation system (30 points system) or the World Choir Games evaluation system (100 points system). This evaluation is based on the same evaluation criteria so that the results of all INTERKULTUR competitions and choral categories become comparable and transparent.

Along with the style of judging, also check out who will be judging the competition. Getting to know them will give you a sense of the event and what they are looking for. It’s a great sign if there are prestigious judges at the competition.

Think Hard About Categories

Matching your choir to the division categories in a choir event is crucial for success. You want to be sure that you will be sorted correctly, giving you the best possible chance to succeed.

Along with this are also the more obvious considerations of the age, gender, and make-up of your choir. You want to triple-check that you have the right kind of choir for the competition.

What Do Other Choristers Have to Say

We live in a time when you can find reviews for just about anything — choir events included! Use this information to your benefit. By learning about the past experiences of choristers, you’ll find out so many important factors:

  • Does the event keep to its schedule?
  • Is there fair feedback?
  • How is the overall atmosphere?
  • What can the choir singers expect?

These and more questions will be answered, giving you a much better sense of an event.

Getting the Event Right

When you find the right event for your choir, it makes for a great experience that everyone enjoys. So it’s important to take the time to find out what you need to know.

With the above considerations, you’ll be able to confidently choose the event for your choir.

INTERKULTUR holds many choir events throughout the world every year! These include competitive and non-competitive performances at all different ability levels — meaning there’s something for every choir.

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