International Federation for Choral Music

The Mothers Chorus Festival has been one of the most popular competitions held annually by Japan Choral Association (JCA). As the event was cancelled for 2020, JCA planned the first-ever virtual Mothers Chorus Project to keep the singing spirit alive. The result was a choir of 1,518 singers from all over Japan and the world! The video was released on 24 December 2020 and now it is available with English subtitles! Don’t miss the opportunity to hear JCA President and Vice-President speak about the project and share comments from singers. 

These were keys for making the project successful:

• Sheet music of the song Sing! was sent to singers for free with generous support by Kewpie Corporation.
• An instructional video and leaflet on how to record and post the videos was prepared.
• Sing-along guide videos for individual sections (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and alto) were made available.
• To encourage participation, video messages were created by choral musicians including the composer, conductor, pianist, and JCA executives.
• A video recitation by Shuntaro Tanikawa, the poet of Sing! was produced.
• The call for singers was made through various media: website of JCA and local associations, Social Networking Service (SNS), and Asahi Shimbun (major Japanese newspaper and a JCA sponsor).

Virtual Mothers Chorus was different from other virtual choir projects in that there were thousands of enthusiastic singers already looking forward to the live competition scheduled for summer 2020. From the opening moments of the video, you can see from the singers’ shining expressions how much they were waiting for a moment to sing along with others. After being released, the video went viral within the choral community and was viewed 20,000 times in the first week.