Published · 10 July 2024
World Youth Choir 2024: My Fourth Session and an Unforgettable Experience in Canada
My fourth World Youth Choir session took me to St. John’s, Canada, where we performed at the HarbourVOICES! festival under Cecilia Rydinger, explored diverse collective singing traditions, and had the opportunity to work and perform with Jacob Collier.
A few days ago, the World Youth Choir Alumni Session 2024 came to an end. Held from 28 June to 5 July in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the session formed part of the inaugural HarbourVOICES! International Festival of Collective Singing Traditions.
This year’s ensemble brought together 32 World Youth Choir alumni from 24 countries, and for me, it marked my fourth experience with the World Youth Choir, following the 2017, 2018 and 2023 sessions. Having another opportunity to return to this remarkable ensemble made the journey to Canada particularly meaningful.
Working with Cecilia Rydinger
Throughout the session, we worked under the artistic direction of Swedish conductor Cecilia Rydinger, Professor of Orchestral Conducting at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
Our programme combined celebrated classical choral repertoire with Scandinavian and Canadian Indigenous musical pieces, making this session very different from my previous World Youth Choir experiences.
Among the works we performed were Bach’s motet Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf, the Sanctus from Frank Martin’s Mass, music by Jan Sandström and Hanna Havrylets, as well as works by Canadian composer Andrew Balfour.
Music as an Encounter Between Traditions
One of the most valuable aspects of HarbourVOICES! was the opportunity to encounter musical traditions and performers far beyond those we normally meet in our everyday work.
A particularly memorable experience was collaborating with the young singers of the Ullugiâgatsuk Youth Choir from Labrador on Andrew Balfour’s Four Directions. Throughout the festival, we also had opportunities to learn from artists and presenters including Andrew Balfour, Hussein Janmohamed and André de Quadros, whose work connected music with questions of identity, community and belonging.
This was at the heart of HarbourVOICES!: bringing together many different forms of collective singing from around the world, extending far beyond the traditional concept of a choir and exploring the cultural, social and historical roles that singing can play within communities.
Jacob Collier and 1400 Voices
One of the moments I will undoubtedly remember for a very long time was the opportunity to work with Jacob Collier, the festival’s featured guest artist.
We took part in a three-hour workshop and rehearsal with Jacob, preparing his composition World, O World. Working with a musician whose approach to harmony, the human voice and collective music-making moves so freely beyond conventional boundaries was an incredibly inspiring experience.
The culmination came at the Festival Gala Concert on 2 July at the Mary Brown’s Centre, where Jacob conducted a massed ensemble of around 1400 singers. Being surrounded by that many voices, all breathing and creating music together in the same moment, was unlike almost anything I had experienced before.
Concerts in St. John’s
Alongside the Gala Concert, the World Youth Choir performed at the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and took part in the closing HarbourSING! event.
At our concert on 3 July, we presented the World Youth Choir programme under Cecilia Rydinger, while the festival’s other events offered numerous opportunities to share the stage and make music with ensembles from Canada and around the world.
Returning to the World Youth Choir for the Fourth Time
Each of my World Youth Choir sessions has been completely different, but they all leave me with the same feeling: a reminder of how quickly people from entirely different parts of the world can become one ensemble when they are brought together through music.
This time, that experience included Canada, encounters with cultures and musical traditions that were new to me, working with Cecilia Rydinger, sharing music with extraordinary artists, and one slightly surreal evening with Jacob Collier and more than a thousand fellow singers.
Four World Youth Choir sessions later, I still find it difficult to take this experience for granted. Every return brings something new, and Canada will certainly remain one of the most unusual and meaningful chapters of that journey.
I am especially grateful to Slobodan Milošević from the “Jana” Cultural and Artistic Society in Zemun, who kindly lent me a Serbian traditional costume for the concerts in Canada. It meant a great deal to me to represent a part of my culture visually as well, on the stage of such an international event.