World Choir Games: Choristers energised as event takes centre stage

Thousands of singers from around the world gathered at Auckland's Spark Arena on Wednesday night to kick off the 13th World Choir Games.

From near and far, some teams have set their sights on a gold medal - and some just want to have a good time.

Dubbed the Olympics of singing, a group of 36 jurors will hand out medals to the best of the best.

For some groups it's serious business.

"We are from Slovakia, we want to win," one group director told RNZ outside Spark Arena.

But for others, like Australian music teacher Tracy, it's just a bit of fun.

"We're from St Mary's College in Maryborough, Queensland," she said.

"I'm a singing teacher, we found out about the games and thought 'hey it's New Zealand, it's close and how exciting would it be to see some amazing choirs from around the world,' so we're here for fun."

World Choir Games executive director Kylie Sealy said the following 10 days would be a culmination of years of hard work.

"I'm very excited, we've worked on this for four years and we're finally at the moment where we can welcome the world to Aotearoa New Zealand," she said.

"[The World Choir Games] is the world's biggest singing competition. It moves around the world every two years, choirs travel and compete and they win diplomas, medals and trophies."

Sunia Soko is the president of Primanavia, who are a combination of two choir groups from Fiji.

He said the team of young singers grew up around music.

"A thing that I'm very happy and thankful about is the Pacific Islands... they sing everywhere. Singing is something that we love to do, it's in our DNA."

But he said most Fijian singers never pursued music as a career, something he hoped to change.

"I am somebody who is very blessed to have gone as far as Korea to study [music], and I'm just one person. I would love for 10 more, 100 more, 200 more people from the Pacific to pursue music as a career."

It was the first time Fiji had sent a team for the World Choir Games.

"Our president, we visited him before we came. He said this was a historical event for us," Soko said.

"Yes, it's the first time... but it's not the last."