Sung music accompanies us since our birth, with our mother’s lullabies, in happy and pleasant times as well as in our lonely moments: it is like a second skin for us. Yet another year, we will have the opportunity to enjoy these moments with the choral music of Tolosa’s 46th contest’s, trusting that, like years before, it will be full of quality music and will offer us the chance to listen to our songs, as well as the songs of the people from other nations attending the contest, in versions full of emotion, quality and fineness.
14 groups are scheduled to participate in this edition of the contest. They originate from 12 countries: Belarus, Slovenia, Spain, the USA, Hungary, Indonesia, Latvia, Norway, the United Kingdom, Romania, Singapore and Ukraine. This year, we will follow the same criteria as last year’s contest, keeping the Chamber Choir category (between 20-36 singers), which includes mixed choirs, as well as men’s choirs and women’s choirs, in the competition. Additionally, this year it is the Vocal Group category’s turn in the yearly rotation between the Vocal Group and the Children’s Choir categories, and we will return, once again, to our beloved scene in the church of Santa Clara.
During the contest, the choirs will perform around 70 concerts throughout the Basque Country. These performances and the attendance of an audience hailing from all over Spain, devoted in their love for choral music, create a unique and enthusiastic atmosphere particularly gratifying to the choirs taking part in the contest.
We would also like to bring to your attention other concerts, apart from the contest performances: on 18 October, organised by Gipuzkoa’s Choir Federation, the Topaketa (encounter) of Basque choirs; on 2 November, in the afternoon, a concert centered on Slavonic music.
We desire that the people of Tolosa will welcome the choir singers and the personalities of the musical world that will be with us during these days in the same manner they always have: with friendliness and respect.
