Seoul Foreign School hosted APAC Choir 2023: The Calling from November 15 to 17, 2023, with around 100 singers participating from six schools.

APAC (Asia Pacific Activity Conference) festivals offer musical opportunities involving training-heavy workshops given to competent and passionate individuals from Canadian Academy, Brent International School, Hong Kong International School, United Nations International School, Seoul Foreign School, and Taejeon International School.

The 2023 APAC Choir festival adopted the theme “The Calling” and invited Dr Michael Joseph Barrett as its guest conductor.

This year, I had the privilege of participating in this festival as an Alto section singer from Seoul Foreign School’s honour choir.

Participating in this festival allowed me to achieve unique experiences, admiring the musical magic happening in real time, right in front of my eyes.

The festival commenced with a short yet impactful opening ceremony, with a guest singer presenting traditional South Korean music to the participants.

As a student attending the hosting school, I was honoured to be given the opportunity to translate the guest singer’s words on stage during the opening ceremony.

The guest singer briefly introduced three pieces, 난감하네, 진도아리랑, and 니나노, sharing some anecdotes to explain each piece’s lyrics.

For example, the first piece, 난감하네, musically translates a famous traditional South Korean tale, in which a turtle travels to land to find a rabbit’s liver to cure the ocean emperor’s disease.

She also introduced the participants to 추임새, which is the traditional South Korean way of cheering musically.

As she proceeded to sing each of her songs, she actively encouraged the audience to participate by singing along with her to familiar and repetitive tunes, and the audience cheered using 추임새 following her directions.

The opening ceremony as a whole was very successful, officially marking the cheerful beginning to this year’s APAC Choir festival.

After the opening ceremony and up to the third day, the festival was full of rehearsals with frequent opportunities to enjoy and tour South Korea in between.

During rehearsals, the guest conductor led the mass choir with fun warm-ups and activities to help us learn how to control our diaphragm and voices more smoothly.

After effective warm-ups that often lasted up to an hour, the choir proceeded to sing pieces laid out in the repertoire.

The repertoire included a pieces written by the guest conductor himself, “Bonk’ abaphandle”, a piece full of rhythm and dance.

In between and after tiring rehearsals, all participants were able to tour the various gifts South Korea had to offer.

Day 1 mostly revolved around visiting South Korean restaurants; we visited the glamorous night markets and watched a Nanta Show on day 2, and we toured Insa-dong on the final day.

Every day was extremely memorable, and although rehearsals got exhausting at times, the frequent snacks provided by the Seoul Foreign School Parent Association kept our stomachs full.

Three days went by in the matter of seconds, and the final day was also the day of the long-awaited concert.

All the singers dressed up to their school’s representative attire, and our school’s attire was modernised Hanbok to represent our country.

Each school performed 2 pieces prior to the mass choir concert, and Hong Kong International School and United Nations International School even presented a beautiful piece entitled “Gaudete” together.

The mass choir concert evoked many emotions from the audience, with various pieces ranging from relatively sad pieces to rhythmic upbeat pieces.

All in all, the audience did not dislike a single part of the full concert, and this year’s APAC Choir festival was an extreme success.

Kate Han

Grade 10

Seoul Foreign School