Renowned Berkshire Choral Festival seeks Montreal singers for weeklong choral festival

Renowned Berkshire Choral Festival seeks Montreal singers for weeklong choral festival

Montreal, QC ’Äì The internationally renowned Berkshire Choral Festival is seeking applications from Montreal singers, ages 18 and up, for the prestigious weeklong singing festival, June 26 to July 4, 2009.

With a handful of spots set aside for local talent, successful applicants will join singers from around the world and be immersed in an intense learning experience under the direction of distinguished composer and conductor Julian Wachner, former music director for Bach-Academie de Montreal and current director for the Grammy award-winning Washington Chorus.

The weeklong choral festival will culminate with a performance of Mendelssohn’Äôs oratorio Paulus (St. Paul) sung in German and accompanied by Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal at the Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste on July 3.

’ÄúWe are extremely excited for our inaugural visit to Montreal,’Äù says Trudy Weaver Miller, President and CEO, Berkshire Choral Festival. ’ÄúMontreal’Äôs rich cultural heritage, old-world architectural charm, and world class amenities make it an ideal city in which to host the Berkshire Choral Festival. We look forward to an artistically stimulating summer.’Äù

The 2009 season marks the Berkshire Choral Festival’Äôs first visit to Montreal, which joins the internationally recognized list of Berkshire Choral Festival venues along with Sheffield, Massachusetts, and Prague, Czech Republic in providing choral singers from around the globe with the opportunity to rehearse and perform masterpieces of the choral repertoire in a weeklong singing intensive.

More than 180 singers will not only rehearse, but also live on the sprawling campus of McGill University for the entire week. It is a musically and physically demanding program designed for singers who want to reach more deeply into the choral music experience.

Berkshire Choral Festival will begin accepting on-line registrations October 29, 2008. For further information, or to apply online, visit the Berkshire Choral Festival website at: www.choralfest.org.


About Berkshire Choral Festival
The Berkshire Choral Festival was founded in 1982. It was a new idea about a unique way of learning and singing choral music in a rich and artistically stimulating setting.
Twenty-eight years later, the Berkshire Choral Festival still holds to this philosophy ’Äì that choral music is best when it is studied, absorbed, discussed and mulled over by choristers and conductors together ’Äì in total immersion ’Äì until it makes sense as a genuine revelation and expression of the human spirit.