Interkultur President

Greeting,

INTERKULTUR Foundation, with its seat in Germany, is known worldwide as the largest promoter of international choir competitions. The WORLD CHOIR GAMES, the Olympics for choirs, is only one of our numerous activities around the globe. In 2009 INTERKULTUR Foundation will carry out its 100th International choir competition.

Besides the organization of international choir competitions, it is also the task and obligation of INTERKULTUR to promote and support young and leading-edge activities in the area of choir music. One of these remarkable activities is without doubt the "Young Singers Choral Festival" that has been carried out in 2008 for the sixth time in Kuala Lumpur. Since a few years INTERKULTUR Foundation has promoted this event and meanwhile added a competition for Children- and Youth Choirs based on the INTERKULTUR system of evaluation.

In this years edition 2009 we will face a new name for the festival, which follows the Welsh tradition of art festivals: ‘The Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod’. Kuala Lumpur can welcome choristers from Malaysia and from surrounded neighbour countries in order to compete and to learn from international experts.

Garrison Keillor pointed out about choral music: “To sing like this, in the company of other souls, and to make those consonants slip out so easily and in unison, and to make those chords so rich that they bring tears to your eyes. This is transcendence. This is the power that choral singing has that other music can only dream of.”

In this sense I wish the ‘The Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod’ much success and unforgettable experiences and enrichment through the expansion of knowledge in choral singing for the participants.

Guenter Titsch
President