An estimated 40 million people sing in choirs in the USA* alone and in the UK it’s the most popular pastime after sport. But that still puts the UK and Europe way behind Asia, according to Johan Rooze, a Dutch national who has lived and worked in South Korea for almost 12 years. “Here in Asia singing is very much integrated in society and in daily life. Everyone sings in a church choir or a community choir. Every school and university has a very good choir programme too.” And Rooze should know. He’s a conductor and one of the Artistic Directors of Interkultur, a German company responsible for setting up and running The World Choir Games, a bi-annual festival and competition expected to welcome to its 2020 edition up to 20,000 participants and 500 choirs from 70 countries.
His first experience of Asian choirs was in 1995 in Arnheim, the Netherlands, as an adjudicator: “I saw two university choirs from the Philippines and I was flabbergasted. They sang classical, folk, pop music, all fantastic. They won all three categories and it was so unexpected. Can you imagine if I as a conductor tried to do Chinese music and bring it to China, the audience will laugh about the way I do it!” Traditionally the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are particularly strong at folkloric music and are very expressive, with wonderful costumes and often explosive choreographies but the Philippines are the most impressive being “very Catholic from the Spanish tradition so they sing fantastic European church music from all the great composers.”
I learn that the technique of Japan, Korea and China is different from elsewhere. “The melodies have a lot of ornaments and there is a banding of pitches, not equal tempered as we have. It’s pentatonic scales and they slide and use all kinds of different vocal qualities and you see that back in their choral competitions. Nowadays they try to blend their own tradition with Western techniques, so it’s very interesting music. When I first started adjudicating international choirs and I heard these Chinese choirs it was very difficult to judge them because they were all the same, the melody, pentatonic with words we couldn’t understand,” but that has changed now.
It turns out that teaching choirs in East Asia isn’t completely straight forward.
“When I had my first rehearsal with my choir here in Korea, I walked into the rehearsal room and everyone was dead silent – maybe with a disciplined cathedral choir in England it is the same – but I wasn’t used to that. I have to say ‘shut up’ 5 times before I can start. I found out that they’re very trained in singing for the conductor, so it’s very easy to rehearse, but it also means that what I don’t give them, I don’t get back. With my student choirs in the Netherlands, I got so much input and motivation from the choir itself that it was more a working together and sharing ideas. Here they come and wait for the conductor to tell them what to do. Everything is in rote learning. It should be fast and no mistakes. In the West we explore. We take the risk of making a mistake. The teacher asks a question and we stick up our hands and if it’s wrong we don’t mind. Here they don’t stick up their hands because it could be wrong and they don’t want that. But on the other hand compared by the work attitude of the students here, we Europeans are immensely lazy. They work so hard and the individual voice training is fantastic. It’s crazy. I have an amateur choir of 20 singers and they all sing with professional voices. But sometimes you hear the sopranos or the tenors that are professional singers and you hear them picking out of the blend so they’re not listening to each other, they’re not interacting by themselves. You can teach them but it’s not something that happens automatically. It’s a challenge.”
Asked how the standard of their singing compares with the equivalent choir in the Netherlands, Rooze responds: “It’s very high here especially in the past 20 years when singers and conductors have started studying Western music and going to America, or to Europe to get a PHD or Masters. They see the different style and they import it so it’s changing very fast.”
Is it hard to adjudicate singers coming from such very different traditions? “We have 27 different categories which range from children’s choirs, to sacred music to contemporary, to folklore, to pop and jazz and sometimes 80 different countries so there are some things in choral music that you can very objectively adjudicate – out of tune is out of tune. But when if it comes to style and authenticity of music, it’s not always easy but if we have a big competition we have a large panel of 7 international judges and we try to have one from each discipline. Sometimes we need to discuss with the specialist. At some point you can see in the performance, the way they sing, the way they stand, the way they present themselves on the stage. You can also get an impression; is it good or is it so-so, is it chaotic or is it precise. So even if you don’t know the song or don’t understand it you still get the feeling whether it’s right or not.”
I’m keen to learn why choirs come to these festivals. China, Korea and Japan are very competitive and “eager to measure themselves against other choirs. Choirs from other countries come for meeting, networking and exchanging ideas. Another big element is education. We always combine competitions with workshops by one of the adjudicators where we have “evaluation” performances – where the choir will get remarks from the jury – a kind of report. Coaching: you’re learning from other choirs. And finally it’s very important to get together, to sing together – not only with your own group. If you’re in a choir you have a rehearsal once or twice a week, if you go away with them you spend 4-10 days together and it really improves your choral family, your choral blend so it works very well for a choir.”