Watch video footage from last year's festival.

The Alta Pusteria International Choir Festival is a non-competitive musical event that takes center stage in the 11 towns of the Val Pusteria region of Italy. Since 1998, nearly 800 choirs and 30,000 singers have performed at the renowned festival. The musical event includes 40 indoor venues and open air exhibitions. Ensembles will have the opportunity to perform in churches, concert halls, Alpine huts, pavilions, castles, historical centers of the valley, and town squares. Indoor concerts will have two to four choirs perform and outdoor concerts will have five to eight choirs perform.

The festival also includes Meeting Days, which are the concert highlights of the festival. Meeting Days are scheduled in the biggest venues in the valley, and each meeting day allows eight to twelve choirs to perform to large, enthusiastic audiences.


Choirs are grouped together depending on their genre or section. Sections include:

• Sacred or religious repertoire
• Cultivated secular polyphony
• Folk choral music
• Opera singing
• Spiritual, Gospel, Jazz
• Original choral arrangements

Ensembles will get the opportunity to meet and mingle with other international choir groups during the festival's three feasts. On Friday, all choirs are invited to the Big Tyrolese Feast, an all-day event that takes place in Villabassa, a popular resort town in northern Italy. On Saturday, you'll have the opportunity to join other costumed ensembles in the Choir's Parade in San Candido and perform a masse concert. Lastly, you'll partake in the closing ceremony or Festa dell’Arrivederci in Sesto. To learn more about this festival, visit www.festivalpusteria.org.

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CHECK OUT THESE SAMPLE ITINERARIES. CONTACT ENCORE TOURS TO CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM TOUR:

• Alta Pusteria International Choir Festival and Salzburg - 8 days
• Alta Pusteria International Choir Festival with Venice, Salzburg and Vienna - 10 days
• Alta Pusteria International Choir Festival with Salzburg, Venice, Florence and Rome -
  12 days

If you're interested in participating in Alta Pusteria or would like to start a conversation about the festival, please contact Encore at 1-877-460-3801 or encoretours@acis.com.