Embracing Diversity, Singing in Unity: The Intercultural Choir in Kraków

This year I had the opportunity to lead an international and intercultural project supported by IOM Poland which brought together people from all walks of life and from different countries to sing in unison and participate in an intensive choir workshop and final performance.

Around the beginning of 2024 I was approached by IOM Poland to lead a socio-cultural initiative that would mainly help assuage the integration of migrants, specially from Ukraine, into Polish society. The goal was to create a creative environment where both migrants and local people would find common ground, work together and share experiences that would bring them closer and eventually help new-comers feel more at home. 

Project summary

We decided to launch the project INTERCULTURAL CHOIR: EMBRACE DIVERSITY, SING IN UNITY, which consisted of three and a half months of intensive choir workshops and a final performance. Our kick-off meeting took place on Friday 9 February at Kontakt in the Old Town of Kraków and brought together a multinational group of singers, speaking different languages and with various levels of experience in a choir. 

More than a challenge, it was a pleasure to work with such a committed group of people and steer it to our common goal. The programme for the final concert included songs in languages such as Aramaic, Ladino, Zulu, Arabic, Serbian, Greek, Polish, Ukrainian and English, making it a linguistically robust musical experience for everyone involved. You can have a look at all the songs in the programme and listen to the full concert here. 

Full concert at the Potocki Palace

The International Organisation for Migration is part of the United Nations System and the leading intergovernmental organisation in the field of migration. It is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing support to migrants across the world, developing effective responses to the shifting dynamics of migration and providing advice on migration policy and practice. 

All participants were very much involved, both emotionally and intellectually, since choir singing requires both concentration and feeling. In my own history as a conductor, this was one very gratifying experience since the results of our work had to be measured in a short period of time. I am sure that every single one of the choir members and musicians involved had a wonderful time and got to know people with similar interests and artistic affinities. You can listen to them in this short clip we have prepared to summarise the project. 

Finally I would like to thank everyone at IOM Poland for their engagement and support, KBF and the Potocki Palace for providing the venue for the final concert, Kraków Music for their involvement in the promotion and communication of the project and every institution and individual who made this initiative possible. 

The concert was made possible with support from the U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and the courtesy of KBF and the Potocki Palace.