History

Choral Festival

The Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod (MCE) formerly known as The Young Singers Choral Festival (YSCF) now into its 7th year, was founded by two Malaysian choral conductors Susanna Saw and Mak Chi Hoe in April 2003. Both these very passionate music maestros have very common goals. Their objectives to hosting this festival within the Malaysian music community are:

• To expose young singers from all over the country the different international choral trends and developments;


• To serve as an educational festival whereby participants can learn about the various musical aspects and techniques involved in the art of choral singing and performance, with workshops and tutorial sessions led by a panel of specialists in the field;


• To encourage the development of choral singing especially among schools, colleges and institutions of higher learning in Malaysia by providing young choral singers opportunities to meet, interact and learn from one another.

In year 2007, the Young Singers Choral Festival featured debut performance of choral works. All participants and concert audiences were exposed to folk songs from the Kenyah community in Malaysia and Malaysian music percussions. A teacher’s category was introduced for the first time for the benefit of vocal and choir teachers including tertiary music students.

There has been immense growth in this successful festival since year 2003 in terms of:

• The size of the organization
• The direct involvement of local and foreign guest tutors
• The participation of school choirs
• The quality of master class and workshop contents
• The standard of the festival concerts

The festival has since attracted some of Malaysia’s top school choirs and vocal ensembles who have gone on to sing with prestigious projects and choirs abroad such as:

• Asian Choir Games
• Asian Youth Choir (Japan)
• Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO)
• World Children’s Choir (USA)
• World Choir Games

The Young Singers Choral Festival is very privileged to be supported by:

• Alupole Sdn Bhd
• HSBC In The Arts
• Interkultur Foundation, Germany (organiser of World Choir Games and Asian Choir Games)
• Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) Outreach Programme
• Singers of United Lands (SOUL), USA
• The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC)Trinity College London, Malaysia

Choir Competition

The choir competition was first incepted in 2008 as 1st Children’s Choir Competition held in conjunction with the 6th Young Singers Choral Festival. The response from the local school choirs was excellent. It provided them an avenue to contest in a choir competition that was judged using international choral scoring standards based on Musica Mundi (Interkultur Foundation, Germany) guidelines by a panel of international adjudicators.

Local choirs now have the opportunity to gain more exposure in the upcoming competition with participants from around the region of South East Asia.