User:Rheostatik/Festival 500

Festival 500:Sharing the Voices is an international biennial non-competitive choral music festival held in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

History
Festival 500 began in 1997 as part of the Cabot 500 Celebrations, a series of events commemorating the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's arrival in Bonavista, Newfoundland in the year 1497. The inaugural festival was planned to coincide with the anniversary visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who attended the gala opening concert in June 1997.

The festival invites choirs from all around the world (33 countries as of 2009), who must send audition tapes and subsequently be invited to attend. During the day, the choirs attend workshops, clinics and master-classes, as well as perform for free at random places throughout the city, including the airport, hotel lobbies and churches). Concerts in the Afternoon and The World of Music concert series are both concerts open to the public, during which up to 4 choirs perform individually, then combine at the end for two to three pieces led by one of the invited conductors.

The festival concludes with the Grande Finale, a massive concert held at Mile One Stadium. During the concert, there are two massed-choir projects, one involving all youth choirs and the other with the adult choirs. Both are led by one of the two invited conductors and are accompanied by the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. The final act of the finale is the Guest Artist, usually one of the main local draws to the festival.

Symposium
In 1999, the festival introduced The Phenomenon of Singing, a week-long academic symposium as a prelude to the choral festival. The symposium was designed to address a variety of aspects of singing and the human voice including artistic, physiological, cultural, sociological, historical, pedagogical, psychological, creative/compositional.

Past Guest Artists

 * Club for Five (2009)
 * Anúna (2007)
 * Rajaton (2001, 2003, 2005)
 * The King's Singers (1997)

Past Invited Conductors

 * Bobby McFerrin (2003)
 * Bob Chilcott (1997, 1999, 2001)
 * Bramwell Tovey (1997, 1999)