The Chamber Choir of the University of Guadalajara wins first prize in Habaneras and third prize in polyphony and the Telkom University Choir of Indonesia wins first prize in polyphony and second prize in Habaneras.
Mexico offers its best voices to the Habaneras Contest of Torrevieja.
The Chamber Choir of the Music Department of the University of Guadalajara (Jalisco)
has won the main awards of the 70th edition that closed yesterday at the
Municipal Theater.
It has won the first prize for “Ricardo Lafuente” habaneras, the third prize for polyphony and the “Diputación de Alicante” prize for the choral group that has obtained the highest overall score.
The winners were announced at the Final Gala, in another week of havaneres in which fourteen choral groups from European, American and Asian countries performed.
Jalisco
In total, the Jalisco University Choir won 22,000 euros in prizes, in addition to the “José Hódar Talavera” award for best conductor, endowed with a trophy, for its director, Wilmia Verrier Quiñoles, who was in charge of conducting the joint interpretation by around 420 choristers of “Con un beso”, the Havana song that has been the must of this edition with lyrics by José Antonio Quesada and music by Aurelio Martínez.
The very young Mexican choir, also in history, since it was founded in 2021, stood out especially in its interpretation last Thursday in the competition phase. In addition to the obligatory habanera, they sang “Flores de Amor”, “Cubana y Española”, “Eli, Eli” and the most popular composition, “La Morena”, in the polyphony category.
Indonesia
The other big winner of the night was the group of Indonesia Telkom University Choir of Bandung, whose polyphonic interpretation has been highlighted by the jury of the Contest with the first prize in this modality that bears the name of “Juan Aparicio” -inspirer of the Contest torrevejense-, and the second of habaneras “Francisco Vallejos”, which adds a total amount of 15,000 euros. The public, with overwhelming national presence in recent editions, has wanted the prize to stay in Spain, and in this case is for the choir “Encanto” of Griñón (Madrid).
In habaneras, the “Novo Concertante” from Manila (Philippines) won the third prize “Francisco Grau”, while the fourth prize went to Belarus, to the “Raniza Girl’s Choir” from Minsk. The second prize of polyphony “César Cánovas” was won by the Beijing Wuzi Riparian Choir of Beijing (China), while the fourth prize went to the Manila Singers (Philippines).
