We had a really great response to this competition over the first few months of the year and have enjoyed judging all the entries immensely.  Thank you to everyone who took the time and effort to send us something.  We enjoyed listening to every one and have been assured that the community choir scene is thriving around the world!

The range of entries was also impressive.  We received over 30 submissions in total and the winners chosen span three continents – North America, Europe and Australasia.  It’s rather gratifying to be able to say this was a truly international competition!

….but now, onto the results!

One of the really interesting features of this competition is that we launched it at the end of 2019 with a view to judging the entries in April 2020.   When we suspended the competition in March we had no idea that by the time we re-launched it in 2022, a whole new performance medium would effectively have been invented in the intervening period – we are talking of course about the ‘Virtual Choir’.

For that reason, we have decided to offer two first prizes, as well as recognising an extra ‘runner up’ to reflect the quality of submissions in both the ‘real world’ videos and virtual performances we received.  This is partly also because they would have been very hard to judge between as they are so different in form.

So, taking each winner in turn,

First Prize (Real World Video)

Asimbonanga

Sung by

Best Sing Since Sliced Bread Choir

Lead by

Philip Read

We really liked the sound produced by this choir and the performance was great as well, creating a really compelling video.  The choir get to commission a piece to be written or arranged by Craig or Gitika specially for them, as well as 10,000 bonus reward points to spend on future ChoirCommunity purchases!

First Prize (Virtual Video)

Back To Zoom Choir!

Sung by

Lane Chamber Choir

Lead by

Matthew Svoboda

There’s some real creativity and fun being had with this video which was produced at the height of the pandemic.  The quality of the singing and the video as a whole put this in the number one spot for us.  The choir also get to commission a piece to be written or arranged by Craig or Gitika specially for them, as well as 10,000 bonus reward points to spend on future ChoirCommunity purchases!

Second Place
Maliswe
Sung By
The Shenstone Roses
Lead by
Margaret Jones

Third Place
Make You Feel My Love
Sung By
Wingsong Choir
Lead by
Susan Stott

We thought that both of these entries balanced a great sound with a great performance which really highlighted the best elements of each arrangement.  The prizes awarded for these entries are 10,000 and 5,000 bonus reward points respectively!

And the runners up, receiving 2,000 bonus rewards points each are (click on the song title to view the YouTube video):

Our Voice Choir from the Royal Bolton Hospital singing We Three Kings
Treble Clef singing Electricity
Earthly Voices singing Lady of Autumn

and the runner up for a virtual performance is:

The London Humanist Choir singing Pokarekare Ana

So, a huge thanks one more time to everyone who contributed an entry.  We hope you enjoyed taking part as much as we did watching all the submissions!  I’m sure we’ll do something similar (but not exactly the same) again in the future!