The Mzansi Youth Choir came out as the winner in the Category “Choirs with Accompaniment” with their video submission “A Million Dreams” by Benj Pasek, arranged by James Bassingthwaighte.
Soweto, South Africa (20 July 2020) – The proudly South African Soweto-based Mzansi Youth Choir has just won themselves another international accolade in the Interkultur Video Awards 2020.
The Mzansi Youth Choir from Soweto was formed in 2003 with the aim of affording firstly, talented, vulnerable teenagers and young adults, the opportunity to proficiently perform locally and abroad, secondly, to create an appreciation of traditional African music nationally and internationally and finally to embrace various music genres.
Interkultur is a worldwide organisation with approximately 120,000 choirs from 80 countries as members and represents roughly 4,8 million artists. Every year, this organisation arranges roundabout 14 competitions, bringing together choirs from various cultures across the world to make music.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 World Choir Games – an annual musical highlight – could not go ahead in Belgium as planned, and as an alternative, Interkultur launched their “Virtual Choir Games” for the first time, dedicated to choristers from all over the world.
These previously unpublished videos were presented on their INTERKULTUR.TV platform and social media channels from 5 to 15 July 2020. A total of 128 videos, from 44 countries was received in two categories: Choirs A Capella, and Choirs with Accompaniment.
The Mzansi Youth Choir came out as the winner in the Category “Choirs with Accompaniment” with their video submission “A Million Dreams” by Benj Pasek, arranged by James Bassingthwaighte.
The Musical Director of Mzansi Youth Choir, Sidumo Nyamezele proudly stated: “This is an amazing achievement by wonderful, motivated choristers and it has been a privilege to fly South Africa’s flag high amidst very difficult times during this Covid-19 pandemic.”
Video submissions for the awards were judged on “Choir Quality”, “Production” as well as “Creativity”.
The judges for the awards were:
- Prof Dr Ralf Eisenbeiß (Germany)
- Johan Rooze (Netherlands/South Korea)
- Maartin vam Ingelgem (Belgium)
- Jelena Dannhauer (Germany) and
- Francesco Leonardi (Italy)
Results were announced in July via a virtual closing ceremony. Naturally, there were some very creative submissions, including a submission from Armenia by the “Little Armenian Singers” – who (independent from the evaluation criteria) received recognition for “most encouraging video in times of Covid-19”.
Prof Dr Ralf Eisenbeiß, Interkultur Artistic Director, states: “I was impressed and also surprised by the high quality and creativity the choirs have achieved in their submissions. You can see in many of them that they put all their heart and soul into the production of their virtual choir videos and came up with a fantastic result. We all in the jury really enjoyed watching all those videos, and I am convinced that this will not have been the last virtual competition of Interkultur.”
The full list of winners can be viewed here: https://www.interkultur.com/newsroom/interkultur-news/details/news/interkultur-video-award-2020-the-winners/
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