This workshop explores how collective singing in school-based pop and youth choirs can foster participation, creativity, and musical engagement. Focusing on accessible and motivating approaches to choral work, it demonstrates how popular music can become a bridge between students’ everyday musical worlds and the goals of music education in schools.

The session begins with a short “Pop-Up Pop-Choir” experience, illustrating how spontaneous participation and instant music-making can create a sense of community and shared ownership. Building on this idea, the workshop then turns to more traditional choir settings, including singing from notation. Participants will experience and discuss practical methods for rehearsing and performing pop choir repertoire with adolescents.

A key focus lies on musical co-creation: how students can be involved in artistic decisions—not only by choosing repertoire, but shaping their meaningful interpretations and developing ideas for performance and movement. These participatory processes encourage motivation, self-efficacy, and collective responsibility, while strengthening the social dimension of school music-making. Also democratic dimensons of choir singing - which are easier to access with young people in popular music - will be highlighted.

Participants will receive hands-on ideas for selecting suitable songs, leading rehearsals, and arranging pop choir pieces—sometimes even “live” during the rehearsal process. Core musical elements such as groove, phrasing, timing, and stage presence will be explored practically through singing and movement.

By combining musical experience, practical engagement, and collaborative creativity, the workshop invites reflection on how pop choir work can support participatory and musically high-quality learning environments. It aims to inspire music teachers and educators to integrate popular choral practices that are both artistically fulfilling and socially meaningful.