Taiwanese choral prowess
The World Choir Games (WCG) are the largest choir competition in the world. This year’s event, which was held in Riga, Latvia, featured some 460 choirs from 73 countries.
Seven Taiwanese choirs took part in the open competition section of the games, with the New Taipei City Junior Choir, the Taichung Artist Chamber Choir, and the Tsing Hua University Chorus winning gold certificates in the children’s choir, contemporary music and mixed chamber choir folklore categories.
The Taipei Male Choir, which in an earlier incarnation consisted entirely of alumni of Taipei’s Cheng Kung Senior High School, took home the male chamber choir championship in 2002—the best-ever performance by a Taiwanese choir at the games.
Taiwanese choirs have been racking up frequent victories on the international competition circuit in recent years. When the Taipei Philharmonic Youth and Children’s Choir participated in the International Choral Kathaumixw for the first time in July, it beat out competitors from the US, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Kenya to take first place in the children’s choir category. It also performed in the event’s opening and closing concerts.
Taiwanese choirs’ frequent invitations to tour the world are an even more tangible indication of their international standing. Johnny Ku, music director of the Taipei Philharmonic Chorus, says that the international choral community considers Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia to have the best choirs in Asia.
Competition vs. art
Dirk DuHei, artistic director of the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation (TPF), observes that Taiwanese choirs’ outstanding performances at recent international competitions are a testament to their skills, and notes that our choirs are also praised for their dissemination of culture through song.
The performance of the Taipei Philharmonic Youth and Children’s Choir at the Kathaumixw is a case in point. Its program featured an Aboriginal song, pieces by Taiwanese composers Lü Quansheng and Chien Nan-chang, and an adaptation of “Dance of Youth,” a familiar Uyghur folk tune, making plain that cultural depth is the foundation of choral excellence.
Mainland Chinese choirs lack that cultural wellspring.
“Many mainland Chinese choirs competing in international events perform only two or three pieces, just enough to show off their strengths,” says Ku, who is the International Federation for Choral Music’s representative in Taiwan and was a judge in the 2012 World Choir Games. “Very few mainland choirs perform at international music festivals.”
Ku says the reason is that festival performers have to stage a full concert, which requires them to develop a concept, assemble a program, be able to sing in a variety of musical styles, and be able to express themselves through song. The majority of mainland choirs simply aren’t up to the task.
Taiwan has spent more than a decade laying the foundations for its current choral artistry and culture, progressing from merely meeting competition criteria to actively spreading the choral arts. The Taipei International Choral Festival (TICF) has been crucial to this effort.
Cultivating Taiwan’s choral culture
Created by the Council for Cultural Affairs (now the Ministry of Culture) in 1991 and now in its 14th iteration, the TICF invites choirs from all over the world to Taiwan to teach, share, and perform.
The TPF took over organization of the festival in 1996 and made it an annual event in 2008. TPF also expanded it to include performances by professional choirs from other nations, a series of performances around Taiwan, master classes, workshops, and exchanges with domestic organizations. Those efforts have made the event an important platform for bringing Taiwanese choirs into step with global trends in choral music.
“The festival lasts one week, and rather than being a competition it focuses entirely upon choral music itself,” says Ku. “That makes it something of a rarity among Asian festivals.”
This year, for example, the festival has invited the renowned German choirmaster Helmuth Rilling to conduct a performance of Brahms’ A German Requiem for the opening concert, and Hungarian choirmaster Gábor Hollerung to conduct Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana for the closing concert. Such a lineup would be rare even at the world’s most renowned concert halls.
The festival also invited Australia’s Gondwana Voices children’s choir, France’s Mikrokosmos Chamber Choir, Canada’s Cadence vocal group, the Philippines’ Singing Ambassadors, and the unique Inner Mongolia Youth Choir, arranging for them to perform at and hold exchanges with both elementary schools and community choirs while they are here.
Ku says that local choral singers learn a great deal from hearing the visiting groups’ diverse programs. “The choral arts are abstract, which makes them hard to teach. Hearing an international-caliber choir perform can help you understand the precision of the counterpoint and how the voices blend. These shows are enormously beneficial to domestic choirs and audiences.”
The TICF infusion of international knowledge has been helping train local choral singers for more than a decade. “Virtually every Taiwanese choir conductor under the age of 50 has taken at least one master class at the TICF,” says Ku.
Taiwan didn’t acquire its choral prowess overnight. It has accumulated bit by bit, growing into a source of national pride and a joy we can now share with others.
