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June 11, 2018, Palo Alto, CA: iSing Silicon Valley Girlchoir has won the Grand Prize at the 8th Robert Schumann International Choral Competition.
Founded in 1992, and held every 4 years, the Competition is co-sponsored by Interkultur, the West Saxony Choral Association, and the City of Zwickau, Germany (Schumann’s birthplace). Held June 6–10, 2018, this year’s Competition brought together 17 choirs from 11 countries from around the world, including iSing. As Competition Founder Ralf Eisenbeiss told the audience at the Opening Ceremonies: These choirs participate not only as choral competitors, but also as “builders of bridges between nations.”
iSing’s performances in the Chamber Choirs of Equal Voices and Sacred Choral A Cappella categories included Laudate Pueri Dominum (Mendelssohn) Vivos Voco (Szymko), Spark! To Music (Barnum), Bogoroditse Devo (Rachmaninoff), and Even When He is Silent (Arnesen). After successfully competing in these categories, iSing advanced to the Finals, where they performed Der Wassermann (Schumann) and Hoj, hura, hoj! (Mácha). iSing won both competition categories and claimed the Competition’s Grand Prize.
This “Triple Crown win” comes at the culmination of the first 5 seasons of this fast-growing young choral organization. But it is not the first public accolade received by iSing in 2018. Earlier this year, iSing Silicon Valley won Chorus America’s 2018 Dale Warland Singers Commission Award, for a work for treble choir, string quartet, and percussion to be written by Grammy-nominated composer Adam Schoenberg, setting excerpts from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. After leaving Zwickau, iSing visited the Terezin Concentration Camp, in an effort to deepen their understanding of the new work, which will be premiered in Spring 2019, and performed concerts in Prague and Vienna.
Founded in 2013 by artistic directors Jennah Delp Somers and Shane Troll, iSing Silicon Valley brings together 250 of the best young female singers in the Silicon Valley; offers them rigorous musical and vocal training while fostering artistry, engagement, and leadership; and guides them as they build and transform community through song.iSing looks forward to the start of its 6th season of singing in August 2018.