Photo: Kammerkoret Musica performs its Shakespeare programme in St. Paul’s Covent Garden, London, on October 8th, 2016
Musica Chamber Choir
Musica is a well-established Danish chamber choir located in Copenhagen. Musica consists of approx. 25 dedicated singers and is one of the top 5 amateur chamber choirs in Copenhagen.
Our trademark is a thought-out thematic approach to our concert programmes, arranging the pieces around themes such as “Women composers”, “Music and The Brain” and most recently “Our living planet – a concert about the climate change”. We emphasize the use of many different modes of expression when conveying the music, such as alternate line-ups, recitations and light effects. You can check out pictures from the life of a singer in Musica here and see and listen to some of our recordings here.
For information in English about Chamber Orchestra Musica, see here.
Join us as a member
Musica regularly admits new singers in all voice groups. Instruction takes place in Danish, but we welcome foreign nationals to join us. Choir singing is an excellent way of meeting Danish people and getting a glimpse of Danish and Nordic culture. As of April 2025, nationals of Austria, Hungary, South Africa and Sweden are members of Musica – and our conductor is a Portuguese!
You can read more about admission to the choir (information in English) in “Nye sangere“.
More about Musica
Musica regularly participates in Choral competitions. In 2023, we participated in European Choir Games in Norrköping, Sweden, and won gold medals in the categories Chamber Choir and Sacred Music. In September 2018, Musica participated in the “Isola del Sole” competition in Grado, Italy, and won the category Mixed Choir. In October 2015, Musica particapated in the choir competition “Canta al Mar” in Calella, Spain, and won awards for Best Mixed Chamber Choir, Best/most original Programme and Best Conductor.
Our conductor
Musica is conducted by Filipe Carvalheiro (link in Danish). He was born in Portugal in 1967 and is an orchestral and choral conductor, educated from Lisbon’s Superior School of Music and College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. Filipe Carvalheiro has conducted a number of prominent orchestras and choirs in Portugal and been at the head of concert cycles at Lisbon’s Opera House and has taught Analysis and Composition at Leiria Conservatory of Music. In Denmark, he has worked with the Royal Danish Opera.
Latest news and plans
2025:
- March: Performing Magnar Åm’s music for the documentary A Stranger in the World (director Sturla Pilskog) during the film festival CPH:DOX.
- March: Theme concert with music from the romantic period.
- June: Performing Verdi’s Requiem in Tivoli Concert Hall with Copenhagen Phil (external link)
- October: “Music in 3D”, utilizing the physical possibilities of the concert room for conveying a physical dimension of music.
- December: “Sing-Along Messiah” concerts in collaboration with Musica Chamber Orchestra.
Come 2026, we plan a small tour to the islands of Strynø and Tåsinge, and we will be celebrating Musica’s 40 years anniversary with a special concert!
Musica is like a proper glass of red wine on a Friday evening. You can live without it, but life is so much better with!
Musica is a weekly luxury trip into the realms of beauty. The joy and the challenge of reaching ambitious goals through cooperation. Solemn, but never pompous.
Some previous projects
In 2024, we collaborated with the vocal ensemble “Nye Toner”, taking the audience on a journey from day through night to dawn.
In 2023, we were joined by Swizz choir pourCheur in an exploration of the unique atmospheric tone of Nordic choir music.
In 2022-23, we performed a concert programme called “Our living planet – a concert about the climate change”. The concert is a combination of choral music and spoken pieces that cover Creation myths of different religions and cultures as well as scientific statements about the climate crisis and eyewitness stories of climate-related disasters.
In 2022 – after several delays due to Covid-19 – we carried out a cooperation with the Danish rhythmical choir Vokalkompagniet, culminating in two concerts in the new Copenhagen Music House.
Our central project in 2019 was “Music in the Brain”, a combined concert and scientific talk that explores the way music affects the brain.
In 2018, Musica started its own Chamber Orchestra to perform with the choir and independently. The first joint project was Mozart’s Requiem, which was repeated in 2021 and 2022. Read more in English here. Hear a sample from the concerts in 2018. In 2024, we continued our collaboration with Bach’s “St. John’s Passion”.
In September 2018, Musica participated in the Choir Competion Isola del Sole in Grado, Italy.
In June 2017, Musica hosted a meeting of 3 Nordic chamber choirs, which included 3 concerts over just 2 days. Another project in 2017 was a presentation of Monteverdi’s sacred and secular choir music, to celebrate the composer’s 450th anniversary.
The central project of 2016 was “Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On” – choral music to lyrics by William Shakespeare. We performed this programme in Kronborg (Hamlet’s Castle in Elsinore) and twice on a concert tour to London in October 2016.
The central project in 2014-2015 was Kvindestemmer. In Danish, Kvindestemmer means both Women’s voices and Women’s votes. Kvindestemmer is Chamber Choir Musica’s contribution to the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Women’s suffrage in Denmark.
Kvindestemmer is a concert series and a CD that explores choral music by female composers from 9th Century Byzantium over 12th Century Germany, Renaissance Italy and Romantic Germany to contemporary Scotland and Denmark. The author Maria Helleberg has written introductions – in Danish – about the composers, their lives and challenges. On the CD the introductions are read by the Danish actress Anne Marie Helger. You can buy the CD here or via iTunes or Spotify. You can listen to samples here.