Palau

The Children's Choir belongs to the Orfeó Català's Choral School and is made up of 50 singers between the age of 9 and 16. Since its foundation it has been directed by Elisenda Carrasco i Ribot, and during the 08-09 and 09-10 seasons by Glòria Coma i Pedrals. Xavier Pardo is the current accompanying pianist.

Its goal is to train the singers' voice and ear by means of rehearsals and music language classes, exchanges with choirs from many places and performances in front of an audience, always accompanied by a rich and plural repertoire which helps the singers grow humanly and musically.

It takes part every year in the traditional Boxing Day Concert (broadcast by Televisió de Catalunya) and the End of Term Concert in the Palau de la Música Catalana.

It has collaborated with the Orfeó Català in B. Britten's War Requiem, J. S. Bach's St Matthew Passion, F. Mendelssohn's Elijah, C. Orff's Carmina Burana, Shostakovich's Song of the Forests and Mahler's Symphony no. 3, conducted by S. Bychkov in 2003 and under the baton of Z. Mehta in 2004. During the 08-09 term, it has collaborated with the Chamber Choir of the Palau for the Carmina Burana in the Auditori d'Ordino, conducted by Marzio Conti, and for Mendelssohn's Elijah in the Palau de la Música Catalana, conducted by Víctor Pablo Pérez. It has also collaborated with RTVE's Coro y Orquesta with Carmina Burana in the Palau de la Música Catalana. It has taken part in opera production of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, com Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, Massenet's La Vierge and sung for the first time El bosc de Farucàrum in the Teatre Lliure.

In its repertoire stand out the performance of G. B. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the operetta Cinderella for children's choir and orchestra.

It has recorded three songs for choir and piano by Josep Vila i Casañas for Catalunya Música and has participated in the CD European Christmas Songs and that of singer-songwriter Lluís Llach, Germanies, with whom it performed in Perpignan, Barcelona and Majorca. It has also taken part in recording the CD Cantem aquest Nadal together with the Girls' Choir and the Little Children's Choir of the Orfeó Català, and has recorded the cantata L'Assemblea dels infants by J. A. Amargós for the Auditori Nacional de Barcelona.

It has worked with multiple conductors and orchestras, among which stand out Erkki Pohjola, founder of the Tapiola Choir in Finland, Manel Valdivieso with the Cervera Chamber Orchestra, Marzio Conti with the Andorra National Orchestra, Juan José Mena with the Bilbao Orchestra and Marek Janowski with the Rundfunk- Sinfonierorchester and the Rias Kammerchor of Berlin. It has also taken part as a pilot choir in the choir conducting courses organised by the Catalan Federation of Choral Institutions.

It has performed in several places in Catalonia, Valencia, the Basque Country, France, Andorra, Germany, the Czech Republic, and in Brussels' La Montagne Magique theatre.

The Children's Choir is sponsored by the Banco Santander Foundation.