A computer, iPad and set of headphones on a table with shelves of books blurred in the background. Photo provided courtesy of Musica International.

Originally published in the International Choral Magazine, Volume XLIII, 1st Quarter 2024.

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A service to the world choral community, Musica International, created in 1982, is a collaborative multilingual multimedia database of the world's choral repertoire. It is a research and teaching tool on choral music for choral conductors, musicologists, conservatories, choral federations, music stores... It is also aimed at amateur musicians who are eager to discover and appreciate the choral repertoire.

Available in French, English, German and Spanish, Musica currently covers 200,000 choral titles, contains biographies of 33,000 composers and lists over 2,000 choral music publishers. It is Musica’s ambition is to be the leading virtual library of choral music, a resource containing all possible information about a score.

To be comprehensive, the project covers all levels:

• Score description: information is structured into over 100 different types of criteria (composer, harmonizer, title, genre, form, publisher, difficulty, choir type, language, instrumentation, keywords...) available in 4 languages (automatically translated). In addition, Musica contains over 300,000 multimedia links, to provide a fuller understanding of the chosen piece: image of one or more pages of the score, text, translation into several languages, a sound clip or video or both of a good interpretation if available, a sound file giving the pronunciation by a native speaker, midi file, external links (biographies, correlated sites).
   
• Coverage of the choral repertoire: pieces for children's, male, female or mixed-voice choirs, sacred or secular, from Gregorian chant to choral jazz, popular songs, variety music, great classical works, opera choruses, accompanied or a cappella works, with or without soloists... there is something for everyone. 
   
• Origins of the music: the spread of the project to all continents has made it multicultural, with equal importance given to all cultural heritages.

The Website

The entire Musica website is available in four languages. Alongside the database with its numerous search options, there are four other features to note: 

• the Favorite Piece of the Month: every month, Musica promotes "the" piece that any choir conductor would take to a desert island, if it were only possible to take one! In this way an anthology is being built up containing highlights of international interest which all conductors can harvest. 
   
• the “Auditorium”: an alphabetical list of thousands of sound clips and videos of choral pieces referenced in Musica.
   
• composers' jubilees: a list of composers with jubilees during the current year and the three following ones. Another mine of information for those planning ahead.
   
• manage your own score library inside Musica: no need to purchase software or create a local database! Simply search Musica for the corresponding record containing detailed information, and add your personal data (e.g. location of the score) in a "private field". If a piece is not yet referenced, it is possible to create a new record in the database helping to enrich the Musica database available worldwide. For further information, please contact [email protected].

Collaborative Project

Musica is a collaborative database that draws on the knowledge and experience of as many players in the choral world as possible: federations, composers, publishers, conductors, musicologists, universities and music libraries.

We welcome contributions of all kinds:

• sending multimedia files: texts, translations, recordings of the pronunciation of texts by native speakers, audio or video recordings... 
   
• entering new data and enriching existing ones directly online: composers can add their compositions, publishers their publications, choirmasters their favorite pieces, if not already described. All you need to do is contact the Musica team ([email protected]) to obtain the necessary rights to make entries and corrections online, on the Musica website.

Musica Workshops 

Although online data entry is possible, Musica organizes "workshops" in which conductors, musicologists, publishers and music documentalists are invited to participate. These sessions are a privileged opportunity to share one's particular knowledge of choral music, input one's own compositions or publications, improve existing data, record pronunciations, all in a friendly and stimulating setting with other enthusiasts. The work does not exclude sightseeing or indulging in the local cuisine, on the contrary…

A list of upcoming workshops is available here: 
https://www.musicanet.org/en/musica/musica-workshop-2/

Musica is also looking for volunteers ready to organize workshops in order to promote the specific choral repertoire of a country or a region.

Full Priviledged Access 

Professional users of www.musicanet.org wish to get more information than is available through standard free access to the documentary information.

For this reason, Musica offers full privileged access, with no limitations:

• Like any non-profit organization, Musica International needs financial support, however small. Musica’s appreciation is shown by giving donors full privileged access.
   
• Choral federations and choral directors’ associations that are members of Musica can offer privileged global access to all their members via their website. Ask yours to contact Musica.
   
• The professional subscription is specially designed for music libraries. Moreover, Musica can open up privileged access to an entire institution, or even an entire university campus, by automatic recognition of all its computers, with no need to log in. And there are additional advantages for libraries, including the possibility of locating their scores in the Musica database.

Choral Canada members already receive FREE full priviledged access as part of their membership benefits! Learn more about this and other benefits:

BECOME A MEMBER

The road towards complete coverage of the global choral repertoire is still long. Take full advantage of what has already been achieved. And perhaps you would like to add your own brick to the edifice? The more of us share in the development of Musica, the more and the faster we will reap the rewards.

Click here to subscribe online to the "MusicaMail" newsletter. Further information is available at www.musicanet.org or by phone: +33 3 88 36 17 54

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MusicaInternational

To contact the coordination team: [email protected]

Edited by Gillian Forlivesi Heywood, Italy/UK