City of Derry International Choir Festival and Fujitsu
The Context
First held in 2013, the City of Derry International Choir Festival is now established as a major event in the musical life of Northern Ireland and is the only international choir festival of its kind in the UK.
Fujitsu has been a key player in the UK’s ICT landscape over the last five decades, providing the technology that underpins many of the services UK citizens and consumers use every day, including banks, retailers, manufacturers, energy companies or the government.
The Challenge & The Solution
Fujitsu and City of Derry International Choir Festival (CoDICF) share common objectives, they both want to promote the Derry-Londonderry as a desirable place to live and work, with a diverse and high-quality cultural offering and both organisations seek to contribute meaningfully to the life of the wider community.
Fujitsu were looking to raise their profile and promote brand awareness in Derry – to help them attract and retain talent. Fujitsu’s CSR activity was primarily UK centric, however a client engagement survey indicated that employees wanted more local activity in Derry and Fujitsu were keen to improve existing employee engagement within the Northwest. They were keen to partner on projects which unify, promote community and develop a sense of belonging.
In 2023, Fujitsu decided to become the headline sponsor for CoDICF’s community and outreach work, representing their first sponsorship of the Arts in NI.
The focal performance was a multi-generational representation of the Northwest, all singing their hearts out to the anthemic Dreams (The Cranberries), led by a massed choir of young singers from schools and community groups throughout the region, celebrating people, place and community through the joy of singing together. Performed in The Guildhall Square, the location recalled the iconic Clinton visit scene in Derry Girls. The event paid tribute to the shared sense of place, history and humour that Derry Girls displayed to worldwide audiences.
Investment programme funding enabled the editing, licensing and distribution via social media of a film of the Dreams project, and the roll out of a wider programme of community activity, including pop-up performances in locations across the city. Choirs also performed in care homes, hospices, half-way houses, children’s play centres and special schools. Community concerts took place as free events in performance spaces around the city, whilst Big Sing workshops were designed as fun events boosting vocal confidence and skills.
The Results
The programme of community events and concerts took place with great success across the city and Fujitsu was profiled as a key sponsor on all CoDICF marketing collateral.
• Eleven community concerts took place in venues across the North-west including Derry, Strabane and Donegal.
• Forty choral trail performances took place in Foyleside Shopping Centre and City Hotel as well as additional venues across the city and district.
• Ten Sunday service performances on the festival’s Sacred Trail
• Three Big Sing workshops, two for schools and one for adults
‘Dreams’ by the Cranberries, as featured in the TV series, ‘Derry Girls’ was successfully produced as a live event in Derry’s Guildhall Square - filling it with the sound of hundreds of singers and subsequently broadcast on-line, generating more than 50,000 views world-wide. Watch the production here.
In response to the Festival’s audience questionnaire, 90% of respondents stated that the Festival significantly increased their feeling of belonging to the city.
““We were delighted to play our part in supporting the City of Derry International Choir Festival and particularly the Derry Girls/Dreams project in Guildhall Square. This supported our key business objectives to provide both personal and professional growth opportunities to our employees and position Derry-Londonderry as a vibrant place to both live and work. This initiative was a win-win for the local community, the arts sector and our employees.”
Fujitsu
“Fujitsu’s commitment to the Festival was one of the largest single contributions we have received in sponsorship from a local company, substantially increasing the impact and reach of the event within local communities, together with heightened visibility, for both festival and sponsor. The development of Dreams, a major live and digital project distributed internationally with our partners Tourism Ireland was a high-profile and successful feature of the partnership. Thank you, Fujitsu – we look forward to building on our work together, for the benefit of our singers, communities and audiences.”
City of Derry International Choir Festival
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