Indonesian children’s choir, The Resonanz Children’s Choir (TRCC), with conductor Avip Priatna, again made Indonesia proud, this time at the event 30th Béla Bartók International Choir Competitionin the city of Debrecen, Hungary, by achieving:
● Grand Prize Winner (General Champion)
● Category One Winner Children’sChoir with a score of 95.5 points
● Category One Winner FreeProgram with a score of 98 points
● Conductor Prize for Outstanding Interpretation of Contemporary Pieces and Expressive Choral Sounding for conductor Avip Priatna.
The Béla Bartók choir competition is one of the most prestigious choir competitions in the world and is part of the consortium European Grand Prix for Choral Singing (EGP) which is famous for its highly competitive and prestigious choir competition league. With TRCC’s victory as overall champion of the Béla Bartók competition, TRCC received a ticket to compete in the final round European Grand Prix forChoral Singing 2027 in Arezzo, Italy, against the 2026 overall champions from other prestigious competitions in Europe.
The Béla Bartók choral competition is held every 2 years in the city of Debrecen. This competition is oriented towards contemporary acapella choral works of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Chairman of the Jury, Georg Grün from Germany, in his speech when announcing the winners, described how difficult the competition with modern contemporary songs is, both for the singers in learning and memorizing these songs, for the conductors in interpreting and also for the judges in judging. All recordings of the match rounds including the Grand Prix matches and the winner announcement event can be watched via the YouTube channel @PapagenoLive.
To be accepted to compete in the Béla Bartók International Choir Competition, prospective participants must send an application and performance video to then be assessed whether they are suitable to compete in the competition. In this 30th special edition, only 11 contestants were selected:
1. Riverside City College Chamber Singers (USA)
2. Coralia – Concert Choir of the University of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico)
3. The Resonanz Children’s Choir (Indonesia)
4. Cape Town Camerata (South Africa)
5. Santinig-Bonn (Germany)
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7. Alegria Choir (Turkey)
8. Jazzberry Tunes (Turkey)
9. Bela Bartok Women’s Choir (Hungary)
10. Zoltan Kodaly Youth Mixed Choir (Hungary)
11. Vantus Boys’ Choir (Hungary)
TRCC along with three other participants were selected to appear in the round Grand Prize to compete for the title of General Champion/Grand Prize Béla Bartók International ChoirCompetition. In this Grand Prize round, TRCC performed three songs, namely Christ was born today by Hungarian composer József Karai, then returned to perform the song Spirit of the Lord works by composer Michele Josia, and songs A Poem to the Mother of the Gods by contemporary Japanese composer Takatomi Nobunaga.
Responding to this victory, conductor Avip Priatna said, “Performing a contemporary music repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries is a very big challenge. I am very proud to see the hard work of these children. They not only managed to overcome a high level of musical difficulty, but were also able to convey it very well on the international stage,” he said.
