IN SEARCH OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE EXPERIENCE
EUROPA CANTAT

Nevers, France, July 2000

The France Prešeren Academy Choir Kranj was attedning the Europa Cantat musical festival in the French Nevers. The singers were gaining the new musical experience.

The 14th traditional Europa Cantat festival, held every three years was attended by over 2000 singers from all over the Europe and the world.
Our choir was attending the festival three years ago in Linz. The festival is extremely important and popular.

Our choir prefers this kind of studying to competitions. As in the previous years there have been many workshops in which the conductors of European and world's reputation have been lecturing.  Members of our choir have been attending the workshop on European romantics guided by Norwegian Karl Hogset, the great expert in singing techniques. We have been learning the songs of great composers of European romantics, Elgar, Norman, Rheinberger, Grieg, Dvorak, Wolf and Hensel. We have had the final performance for the audience of more than a thousand people.
Back home we gave a concert with the EC programme to the domestic audience.

Our conductor, Primož Kerštanj has been at the same time attending the highly professional workshop for the conductors.

The town was overwhelmed by music in those nine days of the festival. While in the mornings we were attending the workshops, the afternoons were reserved for singing the shorter songs under the guidance of the two charismatic conductors. These songs are published in the festival booklet and are a contribution of different nations from all the continents. Our contribution was a work of Slovenian Jakob Aljaž, Triglav, arranged by Janez Močnik.
The evenings were reserved for the attendance of many musical events and performances among which the best ones were held in the city cathedral.