Pielachtal Summer Academy for Choral Pedagogy

Besides vocal music, the wirth music academy also offers PSA workshops for choir conductors.

Training the voice as well as awareness of voice and sound with choir or other musical groups is the central subject of the course.

The underlying method of the wirth music academy, and thus the method that is taught at the workshop for choir pedagogy is the wirth method, devised and perfected by Gerald Wirth, president and Artistic Director of the Vienna Boys Choir, over the last decade.

This method is a guide to teaching music and choir directing. It implements the most recent findings of cognitive science, and combines music education in an extensive sense with associative learning and the element of fun.

By including its various facets, such as sight-reading or body awareness, conducting a choir will be even more rewarding because rehearsing music will become easier and more efficient. That is why we integrate a broad band of skills into our method.

Interactive exercises and practical training at our workshops facilitate effortless comprehension of the subject matter and sustainable long-term learning.

Who can participate?

Choirmasters, music teachers, and those who would like to learn a fun-oriented, high-level method to teach choirs.

An overview of the focal points of the Academy for Choral Pedagogy:

  • Choir conducting
  • Efficient method for training a choir
  • Profound education in choral pedagogy and didactics
  • Basics of voice training with a choir
  • Exercises to correct habitualized mistakes while singing
  • Choosing a well balanced repertoire according to the needs and level of the choir

At the Pielachtal Summer Academy you have the chance to practise directly with a large mixed choir, and a children’s choir. Besides learning through instruction and observation during choir-, ensemble-, and solo rehearsals, you have the possibility to conduct sequences of the rehearsals yourself and put to practise what you have learned.

Crowning finale of the week of intensive training is the concert at which all participants perform what they have acquired over the previous days. During the week the choir conductors can choose a song or piece rehearsed with the plenary choir and conduct this at the concert.

Choirmasters are invited to take part in the vocal music workshop for singers as well as to take individual voice lessons with professional voice trainers.

The Pielachtal valley

Venue of the Pielachtal Summer Academy is the Hotel Steinschalerhof in the heart of the Pielachtal valley a mere 50 kilometres from Austria’s capital Vienna. The hotel connects romantic traditional-style ambience with exclusive comfort, and is surrounded by gardens and ponds. It is also known for its culinary delicacies assembled from regional ingredients.

The Pielachtal valley offers a number of original destinations for day-trips and a broad variety of sports activities.

Besides the musical programme, we offer various recreational activities. Everyone is invited to learn Austrian folk dance, join collective day-trips, and sing campfire songs around the bonfire, among other fun things. Our arts and crafts sessions can be valuable even to choir conductors, especially if you wish to work with children, for example building instruments from scrap materials.