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Seeds of World - Class Music
Pump up the volume: The Resonanz Childrenâs Choir at a recent performance in Jakarta
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Pump up the volume: The Resonanz Children's Choir at a recent performance in Jakarta.
In 2007, 49-year-old conductor and composer Avip Priatna, who spent most of his career training and leading adult choirs, began training kids.
Little did he know that his experiments would produce a world-class group of talented kids, known as The Resonanz Children's Choir (TRCC), who would win numerous international awards in less than 10 years.
The choir won several awards in the 10th Cantemus International Choir Festival, which was held in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, from Aug. 16 to 21 and featured 18 choirs from 10 countries.
Resonanz, which comprises 45 children aged between 9 and 17, scored the highest during the festival and won its Golden Awards. It also won the best interpretation award for its performance of a classic piece by Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, the audience award and the sponsor award.
During the festival, the TRCC wore traditional Balinese clothing and performed numerous Indonesian traditional songs such as 'Ondel-Ondel', 'Tamko Rambe Tamko' and 'Taroret' to win over the audience and the jurors.
In addition, Resonanz conductor Devi Francisca was named outstanding conductor. The number of awards won by TRCC in Hungary made it the official grand champion.
Avip never thought that the kids he gathered seven years ago could be groomed into a world-class choir in a short time. When he began teaching children to sing, he only wanted to develop a regeneration program for his own adult choir.
'I wanted to start growing the seeds for my choir in the future,' the conductor, who is also a graduate from the architecture faculty of Bandung's Parahyangan University, said.
In 2012, Avip tried to test the quality of Resonanz in an international choir competition in Bali.
Courtesy of Djarum Foundation
'We only had 25 children back then. We needed more kids to be able to compete in Bali and we held an audition to get the needed talent. Eventually, we managed to gather 40 talented children,' he said.
'In Bali, we won the gold medal in the children's choir category, but not the overall championship.'
A year later, Avip gave his kids a taste of an international choir festival. Resonanz participated in the Hong Kong International Youth and Children's Choir Festival in 2013, winning first prize in the children's and the folklore categories, which positioned the group to win the 'The Choir of the World' award at the event.
The impressive performance in Hong Kong was spotted by a representative from Cantemus and the choir was invited to Hungary.
'I was a bit worried whether the kids could handle the pressure of participating in a festival in Europe that was held so far away from Indonesia,' Avip said. 'But then again, they proved that they had the quality and the stamina to compete against the world's best choirs.'
The recognition of Resonanz in Hungary was overwhelming, according to Avip.
'The organizers were so impressed with our performance in Hong Kong. After we arrived in Hungary, we found out that we were invited not as ordinary participants but one of the few VIPs chosen specially,' Avip said.
'As a VIP participant, TRCC had the honor to hold a special concert of our own, which was opened by the Cantemus Children Choir, the host of the festival.'
He continues. 'We spent one full month to practice for the festival. The children trained from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. six days a week during the preparation time. It was a hard and grueling preparation as we had to consider the children's school schedules and we also needed to convince some of their parents, who were not too keen about the massive amount of time used for choir training,' Avip said.
Avip said that he planned to take the children to more competitive festivals. 'We are considering to participate in either the Golden Gate International Choir Competition in San Francisco, the US, or in the European Gran Prix, the most prestigious choir competition in the world today,' he said.
'The children have told me that they prefer to go to San Francisco because they want to visit the US. So, we will see in a few months which festival or competition we will enter.'
Avip, who had his formal musical education at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria, admitted that he had not used the proper training system for children in developing Resonanz.
'I used to train adults only, not children. I had not a single clue on how to train a children's choir when I started TRCC. The system I used to train them was meant for adults,' he said.
'Then a friend of mine, Devi, who is also the conductor for TRCC, has some experience when she participated in a children choir in her school. She then helped me to train the children because she is very passionate about teaching music to kids.'
Visit theresonanz.com for more information.
