Voices without borders: World Choir Festival brings the international choral community to Hong Kong

For four days in July, Hong Kong became a meeting point for one of the most international gatherings in the choral calendar.

The 2026 World Choir Festival – Hong Kong brought together more than 3,000 participants, with choirs arriving from 18 countries and from 18 provinces, cities and regions across mainland China. Nearly 80 choirs and around 40 international experts were involved in a programme encompassing major concerts, international competition, workshops, masterclasses and individual coaching.

Presented by the [World Youth and Children’s Choral Artists’ Association](https://www.wyccaa.com) (WYCCAA), which celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2027, the festival was led by Artistic Director Professor Leon Tong.

But its significance went well beyond its scale.

From internationally recognised resident ensembles and leading Hong Kong choirs to school groups travelling abroad for the first time, the festival brought together several layers of the international choral world. Competition sat alongside performance, professional development, education and the less tangible exchanges that happen when singers and conductors from different cultures spend several days making music together.

‘Though storms may gather in the world, music always brings us together,’ Professor Tong reflected afterwards.

‘We firmly believe that a choral festival is not only a celebration of arts education, but also a bridge of friendship, compassion and peace.’

Resident artists create an international festival community

At the artistic heart of the festival was a group of six Resident Choral Artists: Youth Choir ‘Kamēr…’ from Latvia, Toronto Children’s Chorus from Canada, New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, Guangzhou Children’s Choir, The Hong Kong Children’s Choir and Hong Kong chamber choir The Mad Singers.

Rather than appearing simply as visiting headline performers, the resident ensembles formed the core of a programme designed around collaboration and exchange.

They featured prominently in the festival’s Starry Concert Series, which brought international ensembles together with leading Hong Kong and visiting choirs across the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and Hong Kong City Hall.

The series began with a joint concert featuring The Hong Kong Children’s Choir and Toronto Children’s Chorus, joined by singers from Good Hope School and Good Hope Primary School Cum Kindergarten.

Across subsequent concerts, the resident artists appeared in changing combinations.

Youth Choir ‘Kamēr…’, the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir and The Mad Singers shared a programme; Toronto Children’s Chorus and Guangzhou Children’s Choir performed alongside the Heep Yunn School and Wah Yan College, Kowloon Mixed Choir; and other concerts brought the visiting resident ensembles together with Hong Kong schools and choirs taking part in the wider festival.

The result was something considerably broader than a conventional choir competition.

Visiting ensembles were not simply arriving, competing and leaving. Internationally recognised choirs became part of a temporary artistic community, sharing stages with one another and with young Hong Kong musicians while singers and conductors encountered different repertoire, approaches and choral traditions at close quarters.

The Resident Choral Artists remained part of the programme through to the Final Round and Closing Ceremony, where Kamēr…, New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, The Hong Kong Children’s Choir and Toronto Children’s Chorus appeared as guest performers alongside the competition finalists.

For Toronto Children’s Chorus Artistic Director Zimfira Poloz, the experience offered the opportunity ‘to listen to outstanding choirs from around the world in magnificent concert halls, and to reconnect with dear friends while making many new ones’.

Norwegian conductor and jury member Ragnar Rasmussen identified those relationships as one of the festival’s most important outcomes.

‘Besides the obvious joy of being together with your friends, the conversations we have are always very inspiring, interesting and valuable learning opportunities,’ he said.

Slovak conductor Milan Kolena similarly described his experience as an international jury member and workshop leader as an ‘inspiring celebration of choral music’, while fellow juror Urša Lah Rasmussen highlighted the professional discussions and exchanges of knowledge between members of the international jury.

A festival tested by the weather

Bringing together thousands of participants from around the world is already a substantial undertaking. In 2026, the challenge was intensified by Typhoon Bavi.

Travel plans for six choirs were disrupted, forcing the festival team to rearrange competition and performance schedules while working with hotels and transport providers to enable affected ensembles to participate.

Leon Tong described hosting more than 3,000 participants as ‘no easy task’, particularly under such circumstances.

Yet the festival continued, and the logistical disruption ultimately became another illustration of the community surrounding the event.

‘Despite the disruptions, the spirit and passion of the young participants have been truly inspiring,’ Tong said during the festival.

International competition – and two headline honours

Competition remained an important strand of the festival.

Choirs competed across 14 categories before 15 ensembles were selected to progress to the Final Round at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.

The finalists reflected the festival’s geographic breadth.

Hong Kong was represented by Yuen Long Children’s Choir, Maryknoll Convent School (Primary Section) Senior Choir, HKUGA College Treble Choir, Good Hope School Choir, HYS & WYK Mixed Choir and Ying Wa College Choir.

They were joined by choirs from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang and Yunnan, alongside the Girls Choir of Musamari Choral School from Estonia and Kearsney College Choir from South Africa.

At the Final Round, Ying Wa College Choir received the Choir of the World Award, one of the festival’s two headline prizes, and also received the Outstanding Conductor Award.

The other principal honour, the Jury’s Prize, went to South Africa’s Kearsney College Choir.

Kearsney enjoyed an exceptional festival overall. The choir also received awards for Best Interpretation and Best Stage Effects, having already achieved gold awards in the Youth Choir and Show Choir categories.

HYS & WYK Mixed Choir received the Outstanding Young Conductor Award, while Yunnan University of Business Management Choir received the Barbara Fei Memorial Trophy for Best Folk Song Performance.

Rather than producing a single simple ranking, the final awards reflected different areas of achievement across the competing ensembles – musical performance, interpretation, conducting, repertoire and presentation.

Kearsney’s Hong Kong journey

For Kearsney College Choir, the results represented an extraordinary international debut at the festival.

The South African ensemble performed in two categories, achieving 90.8% in Show Choirs and 87.3% in Youth Choirs before progressing to the Final Round.

But Director of Music Bernard Kruger was clear that the value of the tour extended beyond the trophies.

‘We are truly proud of our success; but the real benefit lies in the boys’ interactions with other choirs, attending masterclasses with brilliant international specialists, and experiencing Asian culture and cuisine,’ he said.

Of the 44 boys travelling with the choir, 26 were taking part in their first international choir tour.

For ten, it was their first journey outside South Africa.

Those figures illustrate an aspect of festivals that competition results alone cannot capture.

For a young singer, an international choral festival can mean performing in a major concert hall, working with a conductor from another country, hearing repertoire they have never encountered before, developing friendships with musicians from other cultures – or simply travelling outside their home country for the first time.

The medals go home with the choir. The experience can have a much longer life.

Learning alongside performance

Education was embedded throughout the festival.

Alongside concerts and competitions, participants could access workshops, masterclasses and individual coaching with international choral specialists.

That offered young musicians opportunities not simply to perform before an international jury but to engage directly with experienced conductors and hear high-level ensembles from contrasting traditions.

For conductors and educators, meanwhile, Hong Kong became a professional meeting point.

The conversations taking place around rehearsals, concerts and adjudication as well as within formal workshops, are an important part of how ideas about repertoire, conducting, vocal development and music education move between countries.

That gives an international festival an impact which is difficult to measure purely through attendance figures.

A singer learns something in a masterclass and takes it back to a school choir. A conductor encounters a new approach and applies it at home. Two ensembles meet and establish a future collaboration.

The festival ends, but the network continues.

Inclusion at the heart of the finale

One of the most powerful strands of the 2026 festival was its emphasis on participation and inclusion.

Leon Tong particularly highlighted performances by children with hearing impairments, describing their presence as a demonstration of the ‘boundless possibilities of art’.

That idea became part of the festival’s musical finale through Only Harmony, a work by Dr Steve Ho originally commissioned for the Hong Kong Treble Choirs Association and Hong Kong Schools Music Festival and rearranged for the 2026 event as an eight-part work for double mixed choir.

The performance brought together six ensembles.

The Hong Kong Children’s Choir, Guangzhou Children’s Choir and The Mad Singers formed one choir, while Toronto Children’s Chorus, New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir and Youth Choir ‘Kamēr…’ formed the other.

The choirs sang in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, and the combined forces had only around 40 minutes of rehearsal, while Kamēr… was unable to rehearse at all because of its flight schedule.

The conductor, Leon Tong and the composer also altered the planned ending.

Instead of completing the work solely with the massed eight-part choir, a young singer with a hearing impairment was placed at the centre of the finale before the combined voices returned.

The effect gave physical form to the festival’s wider theme: that collective music-making can create a space in which different languages, cultures, abilities and experiences can coexist.

‘May our voices connect you and me,’ said Tong. ‘May harmony touch our hearts.’

More than a concert series

That broader impact is particularly significant because events such as World Choir Festival sit at the intersection of several areas which are often considered separately: professional arts activity, education, youth development, international exchange, cultural tourism, inclusion and community participation.

The artistic outcomes are highly visible. There are concerts, prizes, performances and new interpretations of repertoire.

But surrounding them is an ecosystem involving schools, families, conductors, volunteers, cultural organisations, venues, donors and public bodies, providing collective support that enables outcomes extending considerably beyond what happens on stage.

It can allow a young choir to encounter leading international performers without leaving Hong Kong; enable visiting young musicians to experience the city and its culture; bring specialists from multiple countries into direct contact with teachers and conductors; and create opportunities for young people whose access to international cultural experiences may otherwise be limited.

Hong Kong as an international choral meeting point

The international character of the event also demonstrated Hong Kong’s potential as a cultural connector.

Leading international ensembles shared stages with Hong Kong school and community choirs. Conductors exchanged ideas. Young musicians heard their peers from different musical and cultural traditions. Visiting participants encountered Hong Kong itself.

For Kearsney College’s singers from South Africa, that meant an introduction to Asian culture as well as an international musical experience.

For resident ensembles such as Toronto Children’s Chorus, Kamēr… and the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, Hong Kong became the location for artistic relationships with singers from across the region.

For local choirs, it brought a substantial international choral community to their own city.

This is cultural exchange not as an abstract policy objective, but as something experienced directly by thousands of participants.

Towards a 30th anniversary

The next World Choir Festival will have particular significance, marking the 30th anniversary of the World Youth and Children’s Choral Artists’ Association.

Leon Tong has already invited choirs, conductors, experts and choral audiences from around the world to return to Hong Kong for the celebration. After almost three decades, his underlying argument for bringing choirs together remains simple: music can connect people.

The 2026 festival provided multiple versions of that idea: international ensembles sharing a stage; conductors exchanging knowledge; a South African schoolboy travelling abroad for the first time; children with hearing impairments taking their place within a major international festival; Hong Kong singers performing alongside some of the world’s leading youth choirs; and thousands of participants continuing to sing even when a typhoon disrupted the carefully constructed timetable.

‘Music knows no borders,’ Leon Tong said.

For several days in Hong Kong, World Choir Festival made that principle tangible.