International Federation for Choral Music

Announcing the WSCM2023 Theme: Changing Horizons

The WSCM2023 Planning Committee is delighted to announce the theme “Changing Horizons” for the upcoming 13^thWSCM, to be held in Doha, Qatar, 30 December 2023 – 5 January 2024.

“Changing Horizons” speaks both to this specific IFCM flagship event and to the global choral community on a number of levels. It suggests a new and broader understanding of choral music that includes styles, regions, and traditions of ensemble singing which have been previously excluded from the conventional definition of choral music. There is enormous creative wealth in these parallel artistic expressions and experiences that has the potential to enrich the evolution of collective singing. To change the horizon is to take our art form and extend its boundaries. The horizon limits our own vision, but horizons need not be stagnant; beyond every horizon, there will always be more to discover.

“Changing Horizons” also speaks to a world dramatically and unexpectedly altered. Covid-19 has impacted choral singing in a way that could never have been anticipated. The pandemic has brought great hardship but also incredible innovation and growth. Singers, conductors, and composers everywhere have worked to find new ways to blend and transmit the human voice and, in doing so, have redefined the experience of choral singing. It is the rehearsals and performances made possible by technology. It is changing understandings of what it means to be an audience member or an ensemble singer. It is composers creating works of art that are inspired and shaped by restrictions and building on these new realities. And it is a deepened appreciation, in all of us, that we will never again take for granted what it means to sing together. The pandemic will end, but our choral world will emerge more resilient and interconnected by these shared experiences.

Finally, “Changing Horizons” speaks to the literal horizon of desert and ocean that is so defining to the experience of life in Qatar. Wind sculpting the sand and the sea creates a physical world whose boundaries are forever shifting and adapting. The edges of the horizon are ephemeral, fleeting, and beautiful like the experience of music itself.

WSCM2023 will bring together the very best the choral world has to offer with outstanding and relevant choirs, singers, speakers, presenters, conductors, composers, and more. In this new era of changing horizons, there is opportunity for all of us to share and to learn. We look forward to welcoming the choral world to Qatar in December 2023.