ChoralTIES Webinar #4 - "Conducting Youth and Children’s Choirs 2

"CONDUCTING YOUTH AND CHILDREN´S CHOIRS - Encouraging the creation of youth and children's choirs, giving practical inputs and tools to choral conductors and leaders" with Basilio Astulez, Zimfira Poloz & Ken Wakia

Conducting children's and youth choirs can be challenging. It requires creativity, enthusiasm, joy, and excellence. During this webinar which took place on 22 May 2025, The three invited conductors, each with different, personal, and successful works, will present their ideas, strategies, and philosophies on how to choose repertoire, work on rehearsal techniques, and prepare concerts and projects for this type of ensemble.

MEET THE PRESENTERS
Basilio Astulez (Basque Country, Spain) Basilio is a choral conductor and music educator. He founded the Leioa Kantika Korala children´s choir in 2000 and the San Juan Bautista Abesbatza (SJB) mixed youth choir in 2008. The recently-founded choir school at the Leioa Municipal Music Conservatory has over 250 singers and its choral ensembles have received numerous awards.
Zimfira Poloz (Canada) Award-winning conductor, educator, and artistic director of the Toronto Children's Chorus, Zimfira leads 300 singers across eight ensembles. Passionate about the transformative power of choral music, Zimfira is committed to developing artistic excellence and vocal integrity while, simultaneously, inspiring the next generation of musicians worldwide.
Ken Wakia (Kenya) Motivated in the early years of his career by his membership in the World Youth Choir and his time in the United States singing with Jubilate Vocal Ensemble (Miami, Florida), Ken founded the Nairobi Chamber Chorus with a vision of enabling young Kenyans to participate in a high-quality musical forum through which they can build their careers and expand their realm of knowledge and interest in the arts.

This Webinar was organised in cooperation with IFCM in the framework of the Choral TIES project co-funded by the EU.