Schools and Choirs

In the Pielachtal valley, in the heart of Austria, the wirth music academy hosts the yearly intensive workshops for vocal music.

Besides the public Academy courses, we also offer the possibility for choirs and school groups to organize exclusive wimac Pielachtal Summer Academy workshops with Gerald Wirth and his team.

This setting enables training the performance and interplay of a group or choir as an entity. Besides this particularity, the Academy for schools and choirs offers the same focal programme points as our other courses. Length, intensity, and programme framework of the individual workshop can be attuned to the features and demands of the respective group. Simply contact us to discuss the specifics.

The basic structure of our workshops provides a programme to develop the voice, concentrating on choir singing. Generally, over the course of one week, participants take their voice to the next level and master a profound music repertoire for choir, ensembles, and solos.

PSA is much more than a mere week of singing.

In between choir rehearsals participants attend individual voice lessons, where they work with professional voice trainers from Austria’s leading ranks.

In addition, all singers are invited to compose a song, instrumental or rhythmical piece, individually or in a small group. With the help of our tutors the last few years have seen impressive compositions by both our young and old students. The creations are presented to the other workshop participants and tutors towards the end of the week.

Recreational activities

The intensive musical training sessions are balanced by a number of recreational activities such as Austrian folk dance, day-trips, campfire songs around a bonfire, or arts and crafts such as building instruments from scrap materials.
The workshop culminates in a grand finale concert where the week’s bounty is presented on stage.

Venue

Venue of PSA is the Steinschalerhof Hotel, an over 300 year-old traditional-style house, lovingly converted into a romantic holiday residence by modern standards. As a landmark of sustainable tourism, meals include a variety of regional culinary delicacies. Children have plenty of space to roam and play in surrounding gardens, while adolescents and adults can find room to retreat.

Pielach valley offers original destinations for day-trips, a nostalgic narrow gauge railway – the Mariazellerbahn, and countless possibilities for sports.

Dates and prices depend on the programme schedule arranged with the wirth music academy.

The plenary choir rehearsals also include:

  • Loosening-up exercises for the entire body – because singing is not reduced to the function of the vocal mechanism
  • Training of breathing
  • Warm-up exercises for the voice
  • Exercises for articulation
  • Acoustic differentiation
  • Sight-reading and music theory by means of the rehearsed repertoire that reaches over various genres, epochs, and cultures.
Overview Pielachtal