Wikipedia
The Pacific International Children's Choir Festival (PICCFEST) was established in 1998 as a week-long residential event and quickly became regarded as one of the top treble choir festivals in North America. The festival's founder and Artistic Director is Peter Robb, a composer and arranger of choral music as well as a conductor. The gathering takes place each year in Eugene, Oregon, United States, in conjunction with the long-established Oregon Bach Festival.
In 2015 the name was changed to Pacific International Choral Festivals (picfest) in order to better identify the expansion from one festival to two festivals each season. With the slogan Longer season, shorter name, picfest announced a line-up of four distinct events. On even numbered years, the June event is now Youth Choral Festival (open to all voicings of young choirs up through age 18) and the new July event is the Young Women's Choral Festival (for female singers through age 18). On odd numbered years, picfest features the Treble Choral Festival in June and the Boys & Young Men's Choral Festival in July (for male singers up through age 18).
picfest is built on a non-competitive model, but each year six - ten choirs are admitted through an audition process that takes into account the choir's history, repertoire, and recordings. Since inception, more than 140 choirs from 35 states and provinces in the United States, Canada, Australia, Finland, Taiwan and the Philippines have been selected and participated.
Choirs and their chaperones are housed on the beautiful University of Oregon campus.
The collaboration between picfest and the Oregon Bach Festival usually results in a performance by the picfest Chorus at the opening ceremonies of the Oregon Bach Festival. In 2008, with the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials running concurrently with the festivals, the opening ceremonies performance took place on the performance venue at track's legendary Hayward Field. In 2011, the Oregon Bach Festival had no official opening ceremony, and the entire picfest Chorus performed a free On-The-House concert.
picfest presents one of the Oregon Bach Festival's On-The-House concerts in the Hult Center lobby during each festival. This concert features one or two of the visiting choirs or the entire festival chorus, as in 2011. Attending choirs also perform individually at various local churches on the Sunday of the June Festival. Each festival concludes with a ticketed concert - the Gala Concert in June and the Finalé Concert in July - performed by the Festival Chorus and guest musicians.