2007 Midwest Children’s Choir Festival with Bob Chilcott



The Ames Children’s Choirs (ACC) program created the Midwest Children’s Choir Festival (MCCF) in 1996 to provide the opportunity for young singers in Iowa to hear and perform with nationally and internationally acclaimed choirs and performers. The 2007 MCCF concert will be held on Friday, April 27, at 7:00 pm, at Stephens Auditorium in Ames. This year the festival will include music by living composers featuring Bob Chilcott. Known for his compositions for children’s choirs and commissioned by ACC, Chilcott has written a new work “All things pass” for the festival mass choir and he will conduct its world premiere.

The first two MCCF concerts included children’s choirs from Central Iowa and the ACC Concert Choir performing separately and as singers in a mass choir and featured choirs from Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Since 2000, the festival has included 300 select Iowa singers and featured outstanding Midwest choirs: Laudate ~ Nebraska Children’s Chorus, Angelica Cantati (Minneapolis), Chorale ~ Des Moines Children’s Choruses, Concert Choir ~ Saint Louis Children’s Choir, Concert Chorus ~ Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, Northern Iowa Children’s Choir, Concert Choir ~ Northern Illinois Children’s Chorus and Cantorei ~ Milwaukee Children’s Choir. In addition, bass-baritone Simon Estes has premiered new arrangements of “America, the Beautiful” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” for soloist, children’s choir and a brass-percussion ensemble.

Featured choirs for MCCF 2007 include: the Carl Sandburg Children’s Choir (Galesburg IL), the Treble Choir of the Honors Choirs of Southeast Minnesota (Rochester MN), and host choir – the ACC Concert Choir. These three choirs will perform separately on the first-half of the concert and join the select Iowa singers to form the MCCF Mass Choir of 400 singers for the second-half for the program.

Bob Chilcott is one of the most active composers and choral conductors today. He has been involved in choral music most of his life, as a chorister and Choral Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, and then as a member of the British vocal group The King’s Singers. Since 1997 Bob has been a full-time conductor and has poured his time and energy into promoting choral singing. As a conductor, Bob has worked extensively with choirs and festivals throughout the world. For seven years he was conductor of the Chorus at the Royal College of Music and now is Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers with whom he works regularly in studio recordings and concerts. He appears regularly as a conductor, workshop leader, and choral clinician at major international festivals and choral events throughout Europe, Canada, the U.S. and in Japan. In 2003 Bob was the first non-American conductor to conduct a National Honor Choir for the American Choral Directors Association and in 2004 was the first foreign conductor for the Song Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. He conducted one of his major works for mixed chorus, Jubilate, in New York’s Carnegie Hall.

The 2007 MCCF will include a four-hour rehearsal of the mass choir (1:00-5:00 pm) with conductors Bob Chilcott and Sylvia Munsen, a one-hour rehearsal of the two guest choirs (5:15-6:15) and an evening concert (7:00-8:30) on Friday, April 27, at Stephens Auditorium in Ames. The afternoon rehearsal will be offered as a workshop for $15. The evening concert is also $15 for a reserved seat. To register for the workshop and concert, send $30 to: Treasurer, Ames Children’s Choirs, P.O. Box 5033, Ames IA 50010-5033. ACC will facilitate purchasing concert tickets at the box office (no additional service fees) only for teachers registering for the workshop and concert. For more information contact 1) Shon Stephenson at ameschoir@aol.com or 515.290.1422 or 2) Dr. Sylvia Munsen at smunsen@iastate.edu or call 515.294.8017