Welcome to The Jutland School of Singing
Talent is everywhere
The Jutland School of Singing is founded upon the conviction that talent can be found everywhere, and we believe environment plays a more crucial role than genetics in determining where that talent can lead. With this in mind, we have created a learning environment where young singers of all backgrounds can grow and develop their talent.
The Jutland School of Singing offers talented children and young people a demanding and professionally organized course of musical training to supplement their school education, and this model of vocal and music education is the only one of its kind in Denmark.
Students at the Jutland School of Singing receive instruction in solo singing, ear training and music theory. All students are also required to learn to play a musical instrument, and most choose piano lessons at the Jutland School of Singing. Our vocal and piano teachers are all conservatory trained and are or have been active professional musicians.
In addition to receiving solo and class instruction, the students sing in either Herning Church Boys' Choir or one of three girls' choirs: MidWest Children's Choir (the youngest singers, from age ten), MidWest Junior Choir (the slightly older singers) and MidWest Girls' Choir (the oldest singers, up to age 24).
Each school season the Jutland School of Singing instructs an average of 200 students aged 10-25. In addition, up to fifteen students attend the conservatory preparatory course MGK (Musikalsk Grundkursus) in classical singing, a state supported course of education which requires a separate audition.
The Jutland School of Singing is a steady supplier of singers to conservatories, opera studios and university music programs.
Recruitment
Herning Church Boys' Choir and MidWest Children's Choir hold auditions every September. In addition, the Jutland School of Singing has a partnership with Herning Municipality where we visit approximately 35 elementary schools each year and listen to about a thousand boys and girls in the third grade.
After visiting the schools, we contact the parents of the children who fulfill the choirs' criteria: a healthy voice, a good ear for pitch and rhythm, and of course an interest in singing. We invite the parents and children to meet with us at the singing school where we then decide together whether the child wishes to join one of the choirs and become a student at the school.
This process ensures that we often reach families who may not have thought about looking for a musical learning environment like ours. As a result, we have a diverse group of children from all segments of society and with a wide range of backgrounds, including students with disorders. All of these students have been chosen solely on the basis of musical talent. The singing school's unwavering focus on work ethic and courtesy allows room for widely different types of students.
Choral work
Each of our choirs holds two weekly rehearsals which are the backbone of the singing school's choral work. In addition there are practice weekends, choir camps, and special work weeks with daily rehearsals. All in all, this adds up to several hundred hours of choral work per year. The choirs learn music quickly and constantly add new works to their repertoire.
HERNING KIRKES DRENGEKOR (Herning Church Boys’ Choir)
Herning Church Boys' Choir consists of 45-50 boys and young men, almost all of whom have been members of the choir since being accepted to the choir's preparatory school at age nine or ten. Mads Bille has conducted Herning Church Boys' Choir since 1984 when he and Dorte Bille established the Jutland School of Singing to educate the choristers in solo singing and ear training.
Visit the Herning Church Boys' Choir website
MIDTVEST PIGEKOR (Midwest Girls’ Choir)
Dorte Bille founded MidWest Girls' Choir in August 2000. There are a total of one hundred girls divided among the Children's Choir, Junior Choir and MidWest Girls' Choir.
Voice instruction
All students at the Jutland School of Singing receive instruction in singing, first in small groups and later in individual lessons. In the voice lessons, the teacher and student work closely together to build the singing voice. The goal of voice instruction is to give each student a sense of freedom and curiosity about their own voice. The students who are ready have frequent opportunities to perform in small open workshop concerts where they can experience singing on their own in front of an audience.
The confidence a student gains by performing as a soloist extends beyond singing. The goal of voice instruction at the Jutland School of Singing is to strengthen the students' self-confidence and sense of responsibility, both as singers and as human beings.
Junior instructors
All of the younger students at the Jutland School of Singing receive instruction in ear training, and some of the older students receive instruction in teaching ear training. To fill the need for instructors who master solfege (musical hand signs for notes of the scale), we began recruiting and training our own instructors from the choir's upper ranks.
This approach has many benefits. It ensures that the singing school's ear training method is passed down directly to the next generation of singers, and it gives the junior instructors invaluable educational and personal skills.
Projects and Sharing Expertise
The Danish School of Singing strives to be a national and international platform for the development and exchange of ideas on all aspects of working with young voices. We take the initiative on new projects aiming to support Denmark's choral scene and promote singing culture in elementary schools.
The singing school hosts conferences as well as the yearly course Young Voices, a forum for all teachers of children and young people at the pre-conservatory level. We document our work and are happy to share our expertise. One of the ways we do this is our Youtube channel, where we make our complete video materials accessible to the public.
Herning sings
In addition to being a training ground for talented young singers and a platform for sharing expertise about young voices, the Jutland School of Singing is a proud contributor to the cultural scene in its hometown, Herning. In addition to arranging our choral concerts, we have made it our goal to get Herning's citizens to sing, including those who don't believe they can.
We arrange public evening sing-alongs together with local choirs, morning sing-alongs in partnership with the local library, Christmas concerts for school and daycare children and their families, singing team-building for workplaces, and Beer Choir in partnership with Danish Beer Enthusiasts. And we constantly have new ideas. We bring many of these ideas to life through Herning Sings, a network of local choirs and singing associations which the Jutland School of Singing spearheads.
Our mission
Our mission at the Jutland School of Singing is to promote singing in Denmark.
This includes the obligation of training choristers in the Herning Church Boys' Choir and MidWest Girls' Choir in order to help these choirs fulfill their visions.
Our vision
Vision is the desired - as ambitious as realistic - status of the the Jutland School of Singing which we seek to realize. It represents a status which we have not yet attained but are well on our way to making a reality:
The Jutland School of Singing is recognized as a leading institution in Denmark with regard to knowledge and expertise in singing instruction of children and young people as well as the work of establishing and developing a talent training ground for children and young people.
The Jutland School of Singing is the most natural and recognized anchor point for projects which promote singing for children and young people in Denmark.
The Jutland School of Singing is at the center of a competent national and international network for the development of singing for children and young people.
