The major choral event Europa Cantat opens tomorrow

The international music festival Europa Cantat 2018 (held this year under the motto ‘A Million Ways to Sing’) will kick off tomorrow 28 July at 20.00. The opening concert at Liberty Square in Tallinn´s centre features The Swingles from the United Kingdom. It is the first time for Estonia to host one of the biggest choral events in Europa which is drawing more than 5,000 singing fans and choral music experts from 50 countries to the country´s capital, Tallinn. Almost a thousand people, including conductors, choral singers, musicians and volunteers, are involved with the festival organization.

The programme includes concerts and appearances by the jazz choir Vocal Line (Denmark), the Inner Mongolia Youth Choir, the Hong Kong Children’s Choir and many others. There are also concerts by the cream of Estonian groups – Estonian Voices, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Estonian National Male Choir, Vox Clamantis and many
others.

„Europa Cantat 2018 is the musical festival with the biggest number of registered participants ever to have taken place in Estonia, as far as we know. We have booked almost all the halls and venues in Tallinn where it is possible to sing,“ said Kaie Tanner, General Manager of the festival team. „There are more than 27,000 ticketed seats available at the festival concerts. In addition to that music lovers can enjoy many free concerts. The motto ‘A Million Ways to Sing’ is connected with one of the festival´s main themes – new ways for musical expression and their links to other arts, and attracting bigger audiences. This has added many intriguing performers and concerts.“

The festival highlights include the Choirs´ Night in the courtyards of Tallinn´s charming Old Town, the concert of The Swingles at the Alexela Concert House on 31 July, The Promenade Concert at the Culture Cauldron on 1 August, the „Happy Birthday, Estonia!“ concert at Tallinn´s Song Celebration Ground on 3 August and Arvo Pärt´s «Te Deum» by a 300-strong choir and the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Grammy-award winning conductor Tõnu Kaljuste on 4 Aust at Charles´ Church. The festival ends on 5 August.

The diverse and large-scale festival is meant to be educational and to avoid inter-choir competition. The programme features workshops, dozens of one-day ´discovery workshops´, over a hundred concerts at concert halls, open-air stages, city squares and courtyards, premieres, a conductors and composers programme, a training course for young event
managers, Musix Expo, meetings of international music organizations and the presentation of the European Award for Choral Composers. The programme includes twelve premieres of which two are from Estonian composers –
Galina Grigorjeva´s „Alliluja“ for mixed choirs and Tõnu Kõrvits´ „Windy Nights“ for girls´ choirs.

„Europa Cantat is a music festival that gives an excellent snapshot of the state of play in the world´s choral music,“ added Tanner. „Tallinn will host international promoters and concert organizers, and we can show them the outstanding work of our conductors, choirs and composers, and present the opportunities that we have for recording and for organizing choir camps and concerts. Our broad aim is to reconfirm Estonia´s pre-eminent position on the map of the world´s choral music.“