New Zealand Choral Federation

The Big Sing is New Zealand’s largest national secondary schools’ choral festival, involving around 8,000 singers aged 12 -18 in ten regional centres each year. Of the 250 choirs taking part, 60 are chosen to go on to either the National Finale or one of three Cadenza festivals to take their singing to the next level.

This year, we finally make it back to the beautiful Christchurch Town Hall on August 25-27 for FINALE. It’s been 15 years since we’ve been able to hold our Finale in this iconic building – with the closure of the Town Hall after the earthquakes, followed by two years of cancellations due to COVID-19 - so we are filled with excitement! We also can't wait to get back to Timaru for our South Island Cadenza (our 2020 & 2021 festivals were cancelled), and to Whanganui and Rotorua for our North Island Cadenzas.

A donation from you would go towards helping with the costs of running our Cadenza and Finale festivals, including the expense involved in livestreaming the Finale to thousands of participants and their families around the country and around the globe!

NZCF works hard to support group singing at all levels. Each year, we also run a number of other activities for young singers which include:

THE KIDS SING – primary and intermediate schools’ choral festivals for around 2,500 children aged 6-13, held in seven centres each year.

FINE TUNING – development workshops for 200 to 300 singers and their directors involved in The Big Sing each year.

PRIMARY GESTURES – one-day workshops for around 50 leaders of children’s choirs, held in 4-5 different centres each year.