The Training Leading Voices project seeks to contribute to the professionalisation of vocal and choral leaders in Europe and the internationalisation of their careers. A needs analysis done by the European Choral Association – Europa Cantat shows that they seek and need a new European event that is particularly focussed on their development and adapts their training to modern needs, which in turn brings an enhanced experience to the thousands of singers who are a part of their choirs and ensembles.

The project consists in a series of training events with an international dimension: conductors’ competitions, study tours allowing vocal and choral leaders to watch their peers at work, conferences and training programmes with practical workshops, laboratories to test innovative approaches, as well as concerts and performances of exemplary groups of a high artistic standard or demonstrating specific methods and approaches. It will culminate in “Leading Voices“, a new major European event for vocal and choral leaders in Utrecht in July 2022.

The events in France, Italy, Slovenia and The Netherlands will welcome as participants vocal and choral leaders of diverse levels of experience and fields of practice, including students (studying school music, church music or choral conducting), educators dealing with singing in schools or music schools, freelancers who lead choirs and vocal groups of all kinds of styles, employed vocal and choral leaders but also those who learned another profession and lead choirs in their free time, conducting amateur singers or professional singers, coming from up to 40 different countries.

The Training Leading Voices project also seeks to inspire other organisations in the process of, or contemplating, organising their own events for vocal and choral leaders. Communication and dissemination of the results is therefore central to the sustainability of the project results and the multiplication of its impact.