SONGBRIDGE CONCEPT

• Focus on child
• Hand-in-hand with composers
• Part of Unesco/IMC ”Music and Peace”

BASIC PILLARS

• Raising the quality and prestige of the new instrument, the artistical ambitious children’s / youth choir
• Multicultural education: international friendship and understanding

THE SONGBRIDGE CONCEPT
(Programme Book of Festival500, Sharing the Voices, St. John’s Newfoundland June 29 - July 6, 2003)

SongBridge is one of the most exciting new concepts to come to life in the world of international choral music. Founded by choral music icon Professor Erkki Pohjola of Finland as a logical culmination of his thirty-one year tenure as founder and conductor of the Tapiola Choir, the SongBridge concept brings together leading youth choirs and choral composers from around the world to further global peace and understanding in a non-competitive atmosphere. Described by Professor Pohjola as “a pebble cast in a pond, the ripples spreading slowly but surely”, SongBridge combines the commissioned choral compositions of prominent international composers with the world choral artistry of stellar choirs from their countries. Each year the SongBridge choirs are chosen by international jury, and gather at a world choral symposium for 4-5 days. In that special setting young singers from different countries live, work and play together in community, learning about each others? cultural and music, developing friendship and mutual respect, and after several days of intense rehersal bring to joint performance their newly commissioned works and folk music from each culture represented in the SongBridge.