From children’s choirs to adult choirs, from secular music to gospel, the Concorso Corale Internazionale International Choir Festival and Competition—which boasts an outstanding international standard—presented a wide repertoire. The event’s aim was to provide choirs from participating countries with an opportunity to showcase themselves, assess their own skills and experience, and, through their performances, for the choirs competing for rankings and category victories to share their own musical culture and traditions with their competitors and the international jury composed of renowned experts.
The German organizer, Meeting Music, is a European organization that holds music competitions in numerous cities across the continent, including Budapest; at these events—including the competition in Italy—choirs are evaluated according to a standardized scoring system. At the qualifying competition held in the picturesque setting on the shores of Lake Garda, both choirs from the Faculty of Music at the University of Debrecen—the Mixed Choir and the Bárdos Girls’ Choir—were awarded gold ratings; moreover, the latter ensemble was also celebrated as the winner of the women’s choir category.
- In this competition, every choir was competing against itself, as each ensemble had to earn the gold rating on its own merits through a diverse, outstanding, and cohesive performance crafted to the highest possible standards. This competition also offered us a great opportunity to gain a lot of important professional experience and use it for our further development. We prepared for the competition at Lake Garda as an event of outstanding significance; our entire year was essentially structured around this, and our goal in previous competitions was also to achieve this rating. The professional jury spoke positively about both of our choirs, highlighting that the ensembles demonstrated precise and clear intonation on stage; they also highly appreciated that we sang every piece from memory, showcasing our diverse range, and described both ensembles as exceptionally musical. This success is due to the fact that we worked and competed toward a common goal; everyone really wanted to succeed, and this was clearly evident in our performances. Community building also played a major role in this result. Thanks to our category victory and the qualifications, we already have several international invitations, and word of our outstanding performance is spreading, Mónika Végh, head of the Department of Solfège, Music Theory, and Choral Conducting at the Faculty of Music of the University of Debrecen- told hirek.unideb.hu.
It is particularly noteworthy that the Mixed Choir also received recognition at the international competition for its outstanding interpretation of the work Mégis mondom Damion by Debrecen-born composer Miklós Kocsár.
On the stage of the Concorso Corale International Choral Festival and Competition, the young singers performed before a jury composed of international experts from three or four countries. In the competition, the Debrecen ensembles had to hold their own against choirs from Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, and Italy. In addition to the official competition program, several concerts were organized in which multiple choirs performed together on stage; for example, the Debrecen choirs performed alongside the Swedish children’s choir and an Italian chamber choir at the opening concert, and alongside the Luxembourg chamber choir and the local Italian men’s choir at the friendship concert.
Conducted by: Mónika Végh and Patrik Szikszai
Piano accompaniment by: Judit Váradi
Program:
Mixed Choir:
1. Lorenzo Donati: Travestimento terzo
2. Kocsár Miklós: Mégis mondom, Damion
3. Gabriel Fauré: Madrigal
4. Bella Máté: Dies irae
Bárdos Lajos Girls’ Choir
1. Simone Campanini: Medicamina faciei feminae
2. Javier Busto: Salve Regina
3. Josef Gabriel Rheinberger: Ave Regina
4. Samo Vovk: Ta na solbici
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