Musica Orbis Gloria 2026: Who won the jury's heart?

The Grand Prix of Musica Orbis Gloria 2026 goes to Tallinn Music and Ballet School Girls’ Choir from Estonia. It crowns three days, from 30 October to 1 November, when twelve choirs from six countries came together for our international choir festival in Prague. Here is how the weekend unfolded, and who went home with gold.

Friday: the festival opens at Salvátor

It all began on Friday with the opening concert in the Church of St. Salvator. Choirs from Slovakia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland and Greece shared one stage for the first time. Six countries on paper; in the music, one language that needed no translation.

Saturday: competition day

Saturday belonged to the competition. One by one, the choirs stepped in front of our international jury, and the variety was remarkable. The youngest singers brought an energy that made the whole hall smile. Boys’ and men’s voices from Würzburg sounded as if they had walked straight out of a cathedral, and the Slovak choir Cantica Collegium Musicum gave Vytautas Barkauskas’s Stabat Mater a reading the jury would later call outstanding.

Alongside the competing choirs, Harmonic Echoes from Greece carried us centuries back with Byzantine chant. Between performances, choirs listened to each other, cheered each other on and made friends across borders. That is what an international choir competition in Prague is really about.

Sunday: St. Vitus Cathedral and the Vltava

On Sunday the festival climbed up to Prague Castle. Singing in St. Vitus Cathedral, under the Gothic vaults where Bohemian kings were crowned, is the kind of moment singers remember for years. Then we said goodbye the Prague way: on a boat on the Vltava, with the city’s bridges and rooftops passing by.

The verdict: Grand Prix for Tallinn

When the jury’s scores were added up, one choir stood above the rest. Tallinn Music and Ballet School Girls’ Choir earned the highest score of the whole competition and with it the Grand Prix, together with a gold trophy in category A6.

Here are all the results of the choir competition:

Cantica Collegium Musicum deserves a special mention for taking gold in two categories. We were also glad to welcome two choirs who sang with us outside the competition: Dětský pěvecký sbor Skřivánek from the Czech Republic and Harmonic Echoes from Greece.

Special prizes from the jury

Some moments deserve more than a trophy, so the jury also awarded six special prizes:

• Tallinn Music and Ballet School Girls’ Choir for vocal culture
• Zuzana Melicharová Srogončíková, pianist of Žilináčik detský spevácky zbor, for sensitive and expressive piano accompaniment of the choir
• Dětský pěvecký sbor Skřivánek for an energetic and spontaneous performance
• Harmonic Echoes for preserving and promoting the tradition of Byzantine chant
• Cantica Collegium Musicum for an outstanding interpretation of Stabat Mater by Vytautas Barkauskas
• Männerstimmen der Würzburger Domsingknaben for an outstanding interpretation of a work by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů

See you in spring

To every singer, conductor, accompanist and parent who travelled to Prague: thank you. Whether you went home with gold or simply with a suitcase full of memories, you made this festival what it is.

The next chapter is already in our calendar. Musica Orbis Gloria returns from 2 to 4 April 2027, and we would love your choir to be part of it. If you are looking for a choir festival in Prague that truly takes care of you, register for Musica Orbis Gloria 2027 today.