Qatar Youth Choir is a not-for-profit audition choir for mixed voices aged 14-18, founded in September 2013. Singers are chosen for their voices/singing ability and for their commitment to contribute to and give of their best to a high-performing group. Reading notes and basic music knowledge are an advantage but not essential – a desire to sing being most important.
This is an ambitious youth choir where members receive specialised training in sight-singing, notation and theory, vocal technique, music interpretation and are exposed to a great variety of the greater classical and contemporary choral repertoire.
We work hard to play hard.
Qatar Junior Choir, formed in 2015, is for younger boys and girls aged 8-13 years. Rehearsals are twice weekly for 1 hour together with one single hour of music theory each week. This choir performs in local concerts with the Qatar Youth Choir and receives basic choral training in preparation for joining the Youth Choir at age 14.
Both ensembles aim to deliver polished and unique performances, every time, and to have good fun along the way!
Irish born, Alena has studied and been involved in music all her life and is passionate about music education especially for children. She read music in Trinity College Dublin, is a qualified piano teacher and also studied the Irish harp for a while.
Alena is founder and conductor of Qatar Youth and Junior Choirs who celebrated their 5th birthday in the 2018-19 season. She is also Deputy Choirmaster with Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. Alena is also Head of Music at the prestigious Kings College Doha school.
Qatar Youth and Junior Choirs perform regularly in Qatar and travel internationally every year. Under her direction Qatar Youth Choir won 1st place at Qatar’s inaugural National Music Competition in 2018 and were awarded the Special Judges Prize and financial bursary sponsored by the German Embassy of Doha for the best performance of a song by a German composer. Qatar Junior Choir were placed 2nd in their Junior category. Both choirs have been awarded many distinctions in the accredited ABRSM choral singing exams. Alena also prepares her students to take formal written music theory exams.
Alena offers much international experience having taken her choirs on international tours to Germany, Latvia, Croatia and Poland. She offers choral workshops and has experience leading large-scale choral singing festivals like the annual Qatar Choral Festival. She conducted large scale singing also at the enormous Europa Cantat festival in Hungary in 2016.
Alena continues to study choral conducting with the Association of British Choral Conductors and has started on her journey in orchestral conducting with American Maestro George Pehlivanian, an orchestral and opera conductor.
