Founded more than 30 years ago, the Presto choir, based in Yvetot (Seine-Maritime) and composed by young local singers, has confirmed its enormous potential. After her title of European champion in 2023 in Sweden, she has just retained her world title in sacred singing won in 2021 in Antwerp. From October 24 to 27, she competed against 13 other choirs in her category in Barcelona and Calella (Spain), during the Sing for Gold festival, where the Choral Singing World Cup takes place. The French choir has thus won a new victory at the world level which augurs other successes to come.
Back from Spain, choir director Dylan Levesque savors this victory in the same category as in 2021: “We finished third in Gospel and we ranked in the Top 8 of the World Cup. It’s a great journey compared to 13 other choirs from around the world in our category. We offered a varied repertoire of four songs to the three members of the jury during a 15-minute session. So it’s a great performance. »
The highest ranked French choir in the Interkultur ranking, in 68th place among 1,000 international choirs, the Presto choir must now “work. We meet for four days during each school vacation and during the thirty concerts that we give during the season,” insists the choir director. “So, even if we have a quarter of renewal of our singers per year, it is the desire to sing, to have fun, the work, the revisions and the rigor which make this success. Choral singing has a positive impact on the sense of responsibility, self-confidence, self-esteem and in particular on the demands of oneself and of others. Everyone must move forward at the same time, at the same pace and in the same direction. So, if the results are excellent, everything can be improved,” adds Dylan Levesque.
Indeed, the choir director does not want to be satisfied with this ranking, “because there were 55 choirs during the Sing for Gold festival. The overall winner is a Bulgarian choir ranked 14th in the world. So we can go even higher. Our next events are in two years with the World Choral Cup and the World Choir Games. To continue training myself and ourselves, we will go to the Cognacais Choral Meetings in April and in August to the Choralies in Vaison-la-Romaine where Master Classes will take place with great professionals. The goal is to increase our level, to take it to the next level and our group is made for that.”
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