On April 1st, we held a workshop in Frankfurt focused on tips & tools for inclusive youth choirs sharing ideas, experiences, and inspiration as part of the Deutsche Chorjugend membership weekend.
From April 23rd to 26th, hosted by the association Rock10eLode, a group of experts on inclusion met for an international workshop in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Each of the project partners (coordinator Coro Cantatutti, Instituto Ikigai, Rock10eLode and European Choral Association) selected a group of conductors and facilitators working in collective singing projects that aim at inclusion. There was a huge diversity from those working with specific disabilities, a variety of disabilities or people with different additional needs / people in danger of being excluded. The group included artists with disabilities who were able to speak from their point of view to avoid speaking “about” certain groups without speaking with them. The workshop participants came from Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Hungary and they went from deep discussions about the definition of inclusion and inclusive culture, the purpose of inclusive (youth) choirs to brainstorming about very concrete tips on how to prepare the rehearsal space, how to choose your repertoire, which icebreakers to use, why, when and how to include movement and other elements of embodiment such as sign language, how to teach new music and how to deal with accessibility issues in rehearsal and concerts venues or during travels to pitfalls in internal and external communication and possible pitfalls. The workshop profited from the presence of the inclusive choir Cantatutti from Zaragoza, Spain, who showed some of their ice-breaking, warmu-up and rehearsal techniques and sang for and with the participants, as well as musicians from Rock10eLode performing for and with the group.
The input from this workshop will go into a “Toolkit for inclusive (youth) choirs” that will be produced at the end of the project, in February 2027, with translations into Spanish, Italian and German as well as other languages.
Both workshops took place in the framework of BEAT – Bringing Equality, Accessibility, and Togetherness; a project co-funded by the EU Erasmus+ Youth programme in which we are partners, that uses choral music as a tool to promote inclusion and accessibility and seeks to remove the barriers that prevent (young) people with disabilities as well as others in danger of exclusion from participating in choirs.
BEAT is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Youth Programme of the European Union and coordinated by Coro Inclusivo Cantatutti, together with European Choral Association, Instituto Ikigai and Rock10eLode