Choral Art Festival 2014

57th CHORAL ART FESTIVAL JIHLAVA 2014

6th June — 8th June 2014, Jihlava

The Festival is organized by NIPOS-ARTAMA Prague and by the Společnost pro FSU, o. s. Jihlava / The Society for CAF, c. a. Jihlava/, both authorized by the Ministry of Culture and with financial support of that Ministry.

I. THE FEATURES AND THE MISSION OF THE FESTIVAL
The Festival is a prestigious event of choral art with many years’ tradition that allows the presentation and mutual interpretation comparison of top Czech amateur choirs with choirs from abroad.
57th Choral Art Festival Jihlava 2014 is designed as a choirs’ festival accompanied by the international competition of chamber choirs. It is possible to realize so called ‘satellite’ concerts in cities and villages of the Vysočina region and accompanying festival concerts in Jihlava before or after the term of the Festival in the frame of the Festival.
One part of the Festival will be the presentation of results of the present and previous years of the International Compositors Competition Jihlava, whose mission is to give rise and to support the formation of new artistically valuable and in terms of sound interesting works that will be understandable for interpretation by the biggest possible number of non-professional vocal groups. It is supposed that also at 57th year of the Festival some of the awarded compositions will be introduced by participating choirs.

The results of the 12th year of the International Compositors Competition Jihlava 2014 will be announced in the frame of the 57th year of the CAF. The Festival will be in the frame of the upcoming Year of the Czech Music considerably orientated to Czech composers.

II. THE CONDITIONS OF THE PARTICIPATION
The interested persons for the participation in the Festival will send the application with the statement about their choice of competitive or non-competitive part of the Festival to: NIPOS-ARTAMA, Iva Daň­ková, P. O. BOX 12 /Fügnerovo nám. 5, 120 21 Praha 2, Czech Republic or via email: dankova@nipos-mk.cz till 28th February 2014. The competition is ruled by the Set of Rules of the Competition that is a separate part of the Festival Conditions (see IV a). The rules for the choirs that apply to the non-competitive part of the Festival are mentioned in the article IV b.

III. THE ORGANIZATION AND THE COURSE
57th year of the Festival will be composed from three Festival concerts in Jihlava and the Chamber Choirs’ Competition. The choirs from abroad will participate in the festival (non-competitive) part together with domestic choirs that won in last competitive years, or as the case may be other outstanding domestic choirs. The Gustav Mahler Philharmonic Orchestra is tipped to co-participate in one of Festival concerts. The competition results will be announced at the closing concert.
The Festival Committee is charged with the control of Festival preparations.
The Czech public will be informed about the Festival via the Cantus bulletin issued by the Czech Choirs’ Union, than on the web site of NIPOS (www.nipos-mk.cz), on the web site of the Society for CAF, c. a. Jihlava (www.fsujihlava.com), on the web portal ‘Czech Choirs’ (www.ceske-sbory.cz) and in the choral activities in the Czech Republic catalogue ‘Choral Life’ (http://festivaly.ucps.cz).
The foreign professional public will be informed in the ‘ICB’ journal issued by IFCM (International Choral Federation) and in the English yearbook ‘Bri­tish and Inter­nati­o­nal Music Year­book 2014’.

IV. THE SELECTION AND THE EVALUATING.

The Festival Committee shall assess the received applications; it will make the selection of the choirs for the Festival concerts and for the Competition and it will inform about the result all applied choirs. The choirs will then receive the time schedule and other details. One of the till now non presented awarded compositions from the composers’ competition can be sent to the selected choirs from festival part for studying upon agreement.

a) The choir competition. The competition course and evaluating criteria are mentioned in the separate section hereinafter (see the Choirs’ Competition CAF Jihlava 2014 – Competition Rules)

b) The Czech choirs as well the choirs from abroad can apply into the festival part of CAF that had a success in this country or abroad. The choirs will send short information (choir’s characteristic, number of its members, address, other contacts, conductor’s cv, proposed programme), DVD record or link to the video record on the free accessible network – to the address: NIPOS-ARTAMA, Iva Daň­ková, P. O. BOX 12 / Fügnerovo nám. 5, 120 21 Praha 2, Czech Republic or via email: dankova@nipos-mk.cz.

The organizers enable to the selected choirs to perform with their programme in the frame of one of evening festival concerts in Jihlava, alternatively in its surroundings as well. The maximum time limit for festival (non-competitive) choirs is 30 minutes. The dramaturgy of Czech festival choirs should contain besides the others compositions written by contemporary authors or by 20th century compositors. The foreign choirs’ programme should present the choral works of their country with contemporary trends to the Czech audience.

V. FINAL PROVISIONS
The Fes­ti­val is financed on the base of multi-resources principle. The main financial sources are non-investment grants and contributions from the Ministry of the Culture, statutory city of Jihlava and Vysočina region. The conditions of the participation of the choirs in the festival part will be specified in the official invitation.
In the case of economic problems the Festival programme should be reduced or cancelled.

Worked out by: Iva Daň­ková