The EUROPA CANTAT festival is the triennial meeting point for the whole European choral world, a place where 5000 singers, conductors, composers and managers are trained, the best ensembles perform, where debates and networking flourishes, where cooperations are born. Participants bring back inspirations, contacts, repertoire and skills; and the event triggers many new programmes across Europe.

The Europa Cantat programme included 20 atelier concerts, 14 regional concerts outside Tallinn, 37 open-air concerts, 38 concerts by participating choirs, 26 special concerts with invited choirs, 38 concerts at the Choirs´ Night and 19 Promenade concerts. A total of 25,000 tickets were printed for participants and 2,500 tickets were sold to the general public. Of which many were dedicated to the themes of current project. 

The Music Expo featured 25 businesses and organizations, including music publishers, music event organizers, and other music industry professionals.

The highest number of guests came from Germany (500), Israel (444) and Switzerland (426). There were 170 volunteers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, France, Hungary, Slovenia, South Africa, Ireland, Finland and many other countries. Participants ate 30,430 festival meals during the week.

The programme included concerts and appearances by the The Swingles (UK), the jazz choir Vocal Line (Denmark), Inner Mongolia Youth Choir and many others. There were also concerts by the cream of Estonian groups – the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Estonian National Male Choir, Vox Clamantis, Estonian Voices and others. 

The festival highlights included the Opening concert at Liberty Square, the „Happy Birthday, Estonia!“ concert at Tallinn´s Song Celebration Ground, Arvo Pärt´s «Te Deum» by the nearly 300-strong choir and the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Grammy-award winning conductor Tõnu Kaljuste, and the Choirs´ Night in the courtyards of Tallinn´s Old Town.

The festival programme included ateliers for singers, a conductors and composers programme, seminars, workshops and round tables, a training course for young event managers, showcases, concerts and public sing-alongs. There was also the Music Expo where publishers, music event organizers, organizations and other music industry professionals presented their products and services and the work that they did.

Many of the daily activities such as ateliers, workshops and concerts were illustrating the theme “Sing Outside The Box”. The list of activities directly related to “Sing Outside The Box” can be found here. 

The international music festival Europa Cantat was initiated by the European Choral Association. It takes place every three years and it is one of the key events in the choral world. The first festival was held in Passau, Germany, in 1961, and the previous one was in Pécs, Hungary three years ago. The next Europa Cantat will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2021.

You can watch the highlights of the Europa Cantat XX festival here