The Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus performs at their sendoff concert at the Guang Ming Institute of Performing Arts in Cebu City on Thursday, July 25. | Kit Bajar
CEBU CITY, Philippines — This group of Cebuanos is back in Taipei, Taiwan to raise again the Philippine flag.
The Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus is set to leave the country on July 28, Sunday for the Taipei International Choral Festival.
Dennis Gregory Sugarol, the music director and founder of Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus, confirmed to CDN Digital that they were invited by the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation for Culture and Education to perform for the annual event.
“It is a compliment to get invited twice, and it is not usually done. Maybe, they see something presentable and unique in us,”he said.
It was in July 2012 when the Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus was first invited by the Taiwan government to perform in the same festival.
Sugarol also confirmed that the group is the lone representative of the Philippines in the international festival.
Other performers in this year’s Taipei International Choral Festival are from Germany, Hong Kong, Sweden, and Italy.
The Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus will perform in Taipei
International Choral Festival in Taipei, Taiwan on Sunday, July 29 and 30. | Kit Bajar
The group has a total of 40 performers who will be part of three concerts slated on July 29 and 30, and August 1 at the National Theater and National Concert Hall in Taipei.
Since this is their comeback in Taipei, Sugarol assures that they have prepared a new set of repertoire.
For July 29, this is a special concert attended by lots of children in the audience.
It will be a 30 to 40-minute concert without break and will perform mixed Asian and pop music.
On July 30, the group will perform for a noon concert program with 40 minutes of lighter music.
They are expected to perform Filipino songs this time.
For the August 1 concert, it will be a 65-minute music with intermission numbers and will perform Filipino composed songs.
The Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus was founded in 2004 in which members are coming from different organizations.
The group already performed and earned international recognition throughout the years.
In 2007, they joined the 1st Asian Choir Games in Jakarta, Indonesia and won three gold medals.
They also joined the Grand Prix Competition of the First World Choir Championships in Gyeongnam, Korea and was named as the world champion in the Children’s Choir Category.
The group was also invited in 2011 for the Hong Kong International Youth and Children’s Choir Festival and came home with four awards.
In 2015, they went to Rome for the Holy Masses at the Vatican City for the canonization of San Pedro Calungsod.
The same year, they bagged the top prize at the 36th Internationales Kinderchorfestival “Georg Friedrich Handel” at Halle, Germany.
Aside from joining different competitions, the group also had a concert tour in the United States of America in 2017 specifically in Oregon, Los Angeles, Salk Lake City, and Phoenix, Arizona.
The Mandaue Children and Youth Chorus also earned recognitions in the country such as Garbo sa Sugbu, Perlas, Ani ng Dangal awards for promoting Filipino music and arts across the globe./dbs
