The Dubai Duty Free’s choral ensemble, the “Dubai Duty Free Nightingales,” has won the “Best Corporate Choir” at the recently concluded ChoirFest Middle East 2018 held at Dubai British School.
The sixth edition of the ChoirFest Middle East organiZed by The Fridge, showcased top choirs in the UAE as well as international choirs from Lebanon and Jordan in a bid to win the title “Choir of the Year.”
The 25-member Dubai Duty Free choir features full time employees representing a number of different departments, among them Marketing, Finance, IT, HR, CSR, Display, Customer Service and Operations.
The “Dubai Duty Free Nightingales” undertook an extensive training program for 32 days leading up to the competition where they performed three musical pieces of different genres, namely: the modern pop song “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit, a Latin praise song “Canticum Novum” (Sing a New Song) and a Filipino folk song “Ayug Ti Amianan” (Scenes from the North).
The competition was judged by three world-renowned conductors Peter Broadbent and Ghislaine Morgan from the UK and Ragnar Rasmussen from Norway.
As one of the winners in this year’s competition, the choir had a special opportunity to perform their three winning songs at the ChoirFest Gala Concert on March 17 at the iconic Dubai Opera.
The Dubai Duty Free choral ensemble has participated in ChoirFest for the past five years and during that time has won three times: winning the “Best Corporate Choir” twice (2015/2017) and the “Most Dynamic Choir” in 2016.
