Since its establishment in 2014, the Community Orchestra Festival in Korea has dedicated to promoting the citizens’ arts engagement by providing opportunities to perform at the nation’s leading arts centre. With a great response from the amateur civic orchestra in various forms and sizes, the festival has been settled as one of the major events celebrated and enjoyed by amateur performers and their families, and different communities for the past years. As an effort to take the festival to the international level, we had hosted the first International Community Orchestra Forum successfully for sharing different thoughts and stories regarding amateur orchestras and building worldwide networks. Starting this year, Community Orchestra Festival will be hosting the 4th annual edition as an international event called 'Seoul International Community Orchestra Festival (SICOF)'.
SICOF2017 invites world's leading community orchestras including North Devon Sinfonia (NDS), The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura and Japan Amateur Orchestra Association (JAO) to perform at Sejong Centre for Performing Arts with 49 domestic community orchestras. In this year's festival, SICO, an orchestra composed of 62 living artists from 29 countries in different age groups with diverse backgrounds will be first introduced to the public.
The 4th Seoul International Community Orchestra Festival
- Date: 16–24 September
- Venue: Sejong Centre For The Preforming Arts, Gwanghwamun Square
- Ticket Price: KRW 20,000 for all seats (free of charge on outdoor performance)
- Ticket Purchase and Contacts: Sejong Centre For The Performing Arts / +82 (0)2-399-1000
North Devon Sinfonia (NDS)
North Devon Sinfonia is a full-scale symphony orchestra comprising between 50 and 80 players (depending on repertoire) performing three or four concerts each year in venues across Devon, a large county in the rural south-west of England. The orchestra brings high quality performances at reasonable prices to the local community, at the same time providing an educational and recreational outlet for some of the county’s most talented amateur musicians. The NDS ethos is based firmly on inclusivity and all players are welcome irrespective of age, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Membership is dependent solely on musical ability. The orchestra’s current membership reflects a broad cross-section of North Devon society and includes doctors, teachers, care workers, a cheese-maker, a postman, a horticulturalist, a number of students, a journalist, an architect, a violin-maker and a vicar. Ages range from 17 to 70-plus and the orchestra is exclusively amateur; none of the players is paid to perform.
