International University Choral Festival

The tradition & historical record

The International University Choral Festival was a non-competitive international festival for university choruses held in the United States. Five festivals were held between 1965 and 1982. ¹

The idea for an International University Choral Festival was conceived by Marshall Bartholomew, director of the Yale Glee Club, who had witnessed the power of singing during his work with prisoners of war during World War I. He passed his idea onto James Bjorge who, with the composer and president of the Lincoln Center William Schuman, arranged the first festival in September 1965. The purpose was to raise choral standards and to enhance international relations through singing. Choirs paid the cost of travel to get to the US but once there all expenses were covered by the Festival. Twenty university choruses participated in the first festival in 1965 singing in New York at the Lincoln Center, the United Nations and Rockefeller Center and in Washington D.C. at the Washington Cathedral, followed by a concert tour of university campuses. Choirs were asked to include music from their country in their program, both indigenous and contemporary. The second festival was held in 1969. The third in 1972 was attended by choirs from 16 countries: the Monteverdi Choir, University of Hamburg, Germany; Coral da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil; Waseda University Glee Club, Japan; Academic Choir of Szczecin Technical University, Poland; Coro Universitario de San Juan, Argentina; Béla Bartók Choir, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary; Gandharva Choir, New Delhi, India; London Student Chorale, University of London, Great Britain; Amsterdam University Choir, Netherlands; Nyonza Singers, Kampala, Uganda; Choeur Madrigal de L'Université de Strasbourg, France; Ewha Womans University Glee Club, S. ¹

The Second International University Choral Festival (1969) The Third Lincoln Center International Choral Festival (1972) The Third International Choral Festival at the United Nations, 28 April 1972 The Fourth Lincoln Center International Choral Festival (1974) ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “International University Choral Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

International University Choral Festival is International choral festival for university choirs held between 1965 and 1982, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²