The National University of Singapore Choir (NUSChoir) was this month awarded the prestigious "Choir of the World" title at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales, UK -- the first for a Singaporean choir.

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As the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod draws to an end, we are extremely proud to announce that The NUSChoir has clinched the title of Choir of the World and won the most coveted Pavarotti trophy!🏅 We would like to thank all of you for being with us here on this journey, supporting and cheering us on! 🙌🏻 Many thanks goes to @nuscfa for helping us through this trip. ✨ To our dearest conductor Prof Nelson Kwei, thank you for making this dream come true! The amount of time, effort and love you have invested to teach and guide us has certainly paid off. ❤️ The choir has trained extremely hard for this competition, and we are beyond grateful and blessed to have won this prize last night. It is a dream come true, and we certainly sang without regrets.

A post shared by The NUSChoir (@thenuschoir) on Jul 8, 2018 at 2:59am PDT

The world-renowned choral and music festival takes place annually in Llangollen, a small town in north-west Wales, during the second week of July, and features several competitions.

The 60-member choir also received the Pavarotti trophy -- named after the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti -- and prize money £3,000 (~S$5,400).

Win came as surprise

Mabel Yeo, a soprano with the NUSChoir, told Mothership that the win was practically a miracle — especially given the experience the choir had six years ago.

That year, 2012, was the last time the choir competed in Llangollen. They had come in first in every category, but eventually lost to a German choir when it came to the grand finals.

They then went on several tours and participated in other competitions like the larger-scale World Choir Games (you can think of these as the choral equivalent to the Olympics) in 2014 to gain exposure, as well as to prepare better for this year's festival.

In contrast, Yeo said the choir failed to win a single category they participated in this year — they came in second, fourth and second in the Youth, Mixed and Open categories respectively — and were not expecting to qualify to sing in the finals.

But thanks to the marks they scored in the open category, they were allowed to move on to the finals where they went up against some of biggest choirs in the world: the 441Hz Chamber Choir from Poland, the Froncysyllte Male Choir from Wales and the Stellenbosch University Choir from South Africa.

She said:

"By this time we really didn't expect to win. But we were grateful enough that we had the chance to sing in the grand finals.

So we gave it our all, had fun. And I guess the judges saw that because we emerged champions!"

Months of intensive training

NUSChoir's conductor and choral director Nelson Kwei also told The Straits Times their repertoire was "colourful and displays a wide spectrum of artistic presentation".

He said:

"I hope we have done our country proud by showing the world our artistic skill and total commitment to choral excellence."

NUSChoir President Samoeul Tan told Mothership the choir trained thrice a week, three hours each time, in the months leading up to the competition — these on top of their weekly sectionals (sessions for groups of singers who sing the same parts to practise together) that last two hours.

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Songs presented included "Humpty Dumpty" medley with props

Here are the three songs they performed in the finals:

• "When David Heard"
• "Que Rico E (Mambo)"
• "Humpty Dumpty Medley"

Tan said they received standing ovations from the audience, especially for the "Humpty Dumpty Medley", which concluded with two choir members whipping out two card cut-out props: a broken egg, and an egg in a frying pan.

You can watch their Humpty Dumpty Medley from the 11-minute mark in their competition video, which Tan said was "simply enjoyable" to present.

Top image via thenuschoir/IG