European Youth Choir 2025

We enjoyed singing with excellent conductors!DONKA MITEVA (DE/BG) studied choral conducting at the State Academy of Music in Sofia and orchestra conducting at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. She worked with numerous ensembles in Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, South Africa, Panama, China a.o.

Donka was awarded the 1st Prize at the 7th Int. Competition for young conductors in St. Petersburg and the 3rd Prize at the 5th Int. Conducting Competition Jeunesse Musicales in Bucharest. 2007-2011 she was a conductor and choir director at the State Opera in Münster, Germany and in 2011 she was appointed Artistic Director and Conductor of Collegium Musicum Berlin. She also teaches Conducting since 2019 at the University of Arts in Berlin. Donka has made it her mission to offer guidance and support to young choral and orchestra conductors, offering them opportunities to work with the Collegium Musicum Berlin Ensembles on a regular basis.

Donka is a sought-after clinician, adjudicator and workshop leader at many prestigious international events such as the World Choir Games, European Choir Games, Grand Prix of Nations and is also a member of the World Choir Council. As a singer, Donka was a member of the European Youth Choir, the World Youth Choir and the European Chamber Choir.

Last year, she was one of the conductors of the EuroChoir hosted in Bulgaria in July 2024.

FRANCESC VALLDECABRES SANMARTÍN (ES) studied at the conservatories of València and Codarts Rotterdam, Universitat de València, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universidade de Aveiro.

Francesc is the conductor of Orfeó Universitari de València and Música Trobada. He has collaborated as a continuo player and repetiteur with Laurens Collegium Rotterdam, Codarts Chamber Choir, Turiae Camerata, Capella Saetabis or Ars Musicae Mallorca, and he has worked as a conductor with Sinfonieorchester Hannover, The Orlando Consort, Orquestra Simfònica de València, Coral de Cámara de Pamplona, Coral Catedralícia de València, Cor dels Països Catalans, Spanish Brass, Amores Percussió, L’Almodí and Pequeños Cantores de València.

His repertoire includes Ensaladas by M. Fletxa, Requiem by Victoria, Sesto Libro de Madrigali by Monteverdi, Pierrot Lunaire by Schönberg, Carmina Burana by Orff, Brundibár by Krása, and Les Noces by Stravinsky. Also, some of the main choral works such as the Requiems by Mozart, Fauré, Brahms and Verdi, Stabat Mater by Dvorák, Die Sieben Letzten Worte by Haydn, Messiah by Händel, Dido and Aeneas by Purcell, Petite Messe Solennelle by Rossini, and many more.

He has premiered around thirty compositions by F. Coll, F. Pedrell, F. Carbonell and I. Latorre, and he has recovered a hundred works from the 17th and 18th centuries from the Valencian archives. He has received the Local Studies Award from the Aldaia Town Council and has been nominated, with Música Trobada, for the Carles Santos Awards, both recognitions for his research work on Pasqual Fuentes (1721–1768).

He has performed in Ensems, Teatro de la Zarzuela, Gran Teatre del Liceu de Barcelona, Early Music of Peníscola, Festival de Música Antiga dels Pirineus, Early Music of Vélez Blanco, ProtoFest, Philharmonic Society of València, Cicle d’Orgue del Palau, International Festival of Mazarrón, as well as giving concerts in France, Poland, Portugal, Germany, Romania, Norway, The Netherlands and Italy. He has recorded fifteen albums, as a conductor and continuo player. He also teaches Choir at the Conservatori de Catarroja and Choir Conducting at ESMAR Music.

Dates of session including concert tour: 16 – 28/07/2025
Place for rehearsal session: Valencia, Spain

Concerts:

Repertoire:

Donka worked on a mix of music from the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as some Romantic and Orthodox music, featuring composers such as K. Nystedt, J. Mäntyjärvi, H. Schütz, and A. Becker.

Francesc focused on Renaissance and contemporary repertoire, with a particular emphasis on Valencian and Spanish music. The programme included works by composers such as Victoria, Palestrina, R. Olmos, Matilde Salvador, and Francisco Carbonell.

Who could apply?

• Young singers between 18 and 30 years old
• Citizens or residents of a European country
• Good singers ready to prepare scores in advance
• English will be the working language.

How to apply?

Applications had to be submitted by filling out an online form.

The eadline to apply was: 1 March 2025

Applicants needed a Google account to access and complete the form.

The audition for 2025’s session consisted of:

• an audio recording (a capella) of the bars 1-24 for the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and for the Bass until bar 33 (with dynamics) of Johannes Brahms’s “Warum ist das Licht gegeben dem Mühseligen” [Score available here]
• an audio recording of a solo song (Lied / art song or folk song) of your choice. The song has to be no more than 2-3 minutes long. It can be sung a capella or with accompaniment
• an audio recording (a capella) of the following warm up exercise (your singing range), starting from suitable key for the voice and then continue to show the full range of your voice:
  

• A picture was used to introduce in our social media and website in case of the you were a selected singers of the European Youth Choir session.
  

Name of files: LastName_FirstName_filecontent (ex: Miteva_Donka_Brahms.mp3)

Every applicant received an email informing them whether or not they had been selected for the European Youth Choir Session 2025.

Tuition fees (per person and country)

* Indirect members are members of member organisations of the European Choral Association in categories A1 and A2 (see here) or members of the Friends of the European Choral Association. The full list of country groups was found right here. In case of uncertainty about which group a country belonged to, participants were encouraged to contact the organisers.

The fee included all the activities, accommodation, travel costs during the session and meals. Scores came at an additional cost but were subsidised, and singers were allowed to keep the scores after the course.

Payment Instructions

Once applications were approved (after 1 April 2025), selected applicants received an email with further instructions on how to pay their tuition fee.