By Tony Nwankwo

Nigeria, again, received international acclaim in the choral music Art as Lagos City Chorale (Nigeria’s Multi-International Award Winning Choir) and Mountain Top Chorale won Gold Medals at the just concluded World Choir Olympic held in Sochi, Russia.

Emeka-Nwokedi

Speaking to reporters on their return, the Chorale Conductor, Sir Emeka Nwokedi, said, the Chorale, last May, had an 11-day tour of Germany at the invitation of the Confederation of German Choral Association. They were invited to present African/Nigerian sacred music at Musica Sacra International (International Festival of Sacred Music) in Marktoberdorf, Germany. This enabled them tour five cities in Germany and gave a total of 11 concerts of exclusively Nigerian Sacred choral music.

According to Nwokedi, “For LCC going for its 3rd World Choir Olympics in 6 years was a big challenge especially with Nigeria’s dwindling economy of the moment. We mustered last minute courage to attend the world’s largest choral festival, as we have severally done in the past, and won gold with a tiny contingent of 10 singers, about 10 percent of the numerical strength of some other choirs in attendance. Despite this tiny numerical strength and other challenges, we still pulled our weight to win gold in the champions competition which is the highest category in the competition”.

The 10 days festival featured 260 choirs from 75 countries, each presenting brand of their country’s choral music. Different choir groups that featured include, young children’s choirs, youth choir of equal voices, vocal ensembles, senior choirs, jazz and gospel choirs, male choirs, female choirs, mixed chamber choirs and full mixed choirs.

The opening and closing ceremonies were most colourful and unreservedly attracted felicitations from the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Puttin; the attendance of the Deputy Chair of the Russian Federation, Olga Golodets, who is also the chairman of the organising committee of the 9th World Choir Games, Sochi. Other top government officials in attendance included the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Medinsky who is the Co-Chairman of the Organizing Committee.

Also present are; the Governor of Krasnodar Region, Veniamin Kondratiev and the Mayor of Sochi, Anatoly Pakhonov. The Interkultur team led by its President Gunter Tistch were on ground to co-ordinate events while the Russian Choral Society with its Director gave tremendous support for the smooth running of the events.