In addition to the Pielachtal Summer Academy, the wirth music academy offers workshops for singers, music teachers, and choir conductors throughout the year in Vienna and several other locations across the world.
These courses include one-day, multiple-day, even one-week events, which can apply to the level of beginners, amateurs, and up to exclusive master classes for advanced and professional musicians. They are coordinated in cooperation with institutions – in the past with a variety including choir organisations, colleges, event organisations, and education ministries.
Gerald Wirth, president and artistic director of the Vienna Boys Choir, developed a method of teaching music with a holistic and associative approach. Several choirs in Canada, the US, China, and Venezuela have already adapted the Wirth Method that Gerald Wirth continues to pass on to all those interested in updating their knowledge in choral pedagogy, but also by working directly with young and old singers around the world.
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The international course’s agenda includes theoretical lectures, learning by participation and observation, followed by practice with choirs or ensembles. The methodological concept demonstrates sound development of a group of singers with the Wirth Method.
The group-specific programme is arranged between Gerald Wirth and the respective competent group coordinators. This way, adaptations can be made to fit peculiarities and interests of participating groups.
Essentially, courses can take place in Vienna, the capital of Austria, or internationally, where choirs or organizing institutions are based.
Vienna is a centre of classical music – home and inspiration to countless composers in the past and present. The ancient city counts a large number of majestic musical venues, such as the Augarten Palais – base of the Vienna Boys Choir. As the artistic basis of Gerald Wirth, it has hosted several international courses for singers and choir conductors in the past.
World Peace Choir Festival – Gerald Wirth, as the festival’s Artistic Director, and selected choral instructors, annually hold workshops for participating choirs.
Early October 2014: workshops in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
October 2014: Wirth lead a children’s choir workshop and a fusion project in cooperation with the Austrian Embassy in New Delhi, India.
In December 2014, Wirth was invited to work with the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital in the US.
An American college choir visited the Augarten Palais in June to participate in a one-day class with wimac. Focus was to gather advice on the interpretation of choral music from the Romanticism epoch and to specifically train the choir repertoire.
In May 2014, Gerald Wirth travelled to the Chinese cities Dali and Wuxi, where he spent three days respectively, instructing provincial music teachers and choir directors in elementary music education, choir singing, and choral sound-development, according to the Wirth Method, while exchanging traditional music indigenous to the local provincial peoples. The projects were run in cooperation with Dali University and the Jiangsu provincial education ministry.
In March 2014, Wirth directed an exclusive master class for selected choir conductors in Paris. The three-day programme consisted of theoretical lectures in the mornings, followed by application and practice with choirs in the afternoons. The small number of carefully pre-selected participants provided the ideal framework for extensive individual feedback.