CAF promotes formation of Andean Youth Chorus

The Andean Development Corporation (CAF) today announced the pre-selection process for the Andean Youth Chorus, which will have 100 singers aged from 16 to 25 from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

Anna Mercedes Botero, CAF director of cultural and community development, said the formation of the chorus, as part of the Social Action Program for Music, is an instrument for the integrated education of individuals and society, whose choral chapter for will be sponsored by the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM).

The presentation of the candidates for the chorus is set to take place during the CAF Andean Choral Voices workshops in each country, which should end next June. The selection will be based on IFCM guidelines. The workshops, which consist of three 10-day sessions, are given by chorus directors, choral song teachers and choir members. From the pre-selection, 20 singers will be chosen from each country between July and October this year.

Botero said that the idea of the chorus is to stimulate the growth and consolidation of this musical movement in Andean countries and give a large number of children and young people the chance to take an active part in the choral world. "In a good chorus it is possible for human beings to come to agreements, to share - through song - dreams and life, anguish and challenges, achievements and joy. Every time a new chorus comes into being, a hope is born; it invigorates our spirit and makes us want to be better."

Singing in a chorus is an activity of coming together, achieving a common goal, overcoming difficulties through teamwork, strengthening the values and virtues that motivate discipline, attention, concentration and artistic and social sensibility.

After its formation, the Andean Youth Chorus plans to hold concerts in the main cities of the five Andean countries, consolidating the Los Andes Cantan choral festival with the participation and enrichment of national choirs, whose repertoire includes an interpretation of the fourth movement of Beethoven´s 9th Symphony, "Ode to Joy."