Alois Glaßner

Alois Glaßner (* 1963 in Kottes , Lower Austria ) is an Austrian choir director , conductor and university teacher . He has been artistic director of the Salzburg Bach Choir since 2003 .

life and work

Glaßner received his first musical training at the Stiftsgymnasium Melk and studied after graduating from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW). He took the subjects church music , organ , orchestral conducting , composition and vocal pedagogy as well as choir conducting . In 1987, while still a student, he founded the Hugo Distler Choir Vienna , which quickly established itself in Viennese concert life and existed for ten years. In 1988 he was the first recipient of the Erwin Ortner Prize . In 1989/90 he studied as a guest student in Stockholm with the renowned choir director Eric Ericson . Glaßner has been teaching at the MDW since 1991.

In 1993 he was appointed church music director of the Augustinian Church in Vienna and in twelve years he organized more than 700 performances of the great classical and romantic masses. As an early representative of the crossover , he was also involved in Franz Koglmann's LP O Moon My Pin-Up with the Ensemble Wiener Vokalisten in 1997 . From 1999 to 2011, as successor to Herwig Reiter , he led the Webern Chamber Choir of the MDW, with whom he completed opera productions, CD recordings and tours, but also designed a number of a cappella programs. In 2002 he was given the task of setting up and managing the newly founded Anton Bruckner Institute at the MDW.

In 2002, Alois Glaßner was also responsible for the first time for the Salzburg Bach Choir 's choir mastering of Mozart's C minor Mass at the Salzburg Festival ; the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra played and Marc Minkowski conducted . In 2003 he took over the artistic direction of this choir , succeeding Howard Arman . In 2004 he was appointed professor of conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna . His students include Thomas Asanger , Alexander Koller, Helmut Schaumberger and Lydia Trogbacher . In 2008 he founded the Vienna Choir School at the Anton Bruckner Institute in order to give MDW students practical experience in choral work and to “ open up a valuable musical educational path for children and young people through choir singing ”, is the way the institution describes itself.

As a conductor Glaßner worked so far - in addition to his choirs - a. with the Symphony Orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper , the Mozarteum Orchestra , the Camerata Salzburg and the Wiener Singverein . He is known “for his broad knowledge of the repertoire and style confidence from the Renaissance to the modern”.

Salzburg Bach Choir

Under Glaßner's direction, the ensemble has become a permanent partner at important festivals and takes great care of the a cappella singing. The ensemble performs regularly at the International Mozart Week , the Salzburg Festival and the Salzburg Whitsun Festival and has been a guest of the Salzburg Bach Society and the Salzburg Cultural Association several times . Guest performances abroad have taken the choir to festivals in Greece, Romania, the Netherlands and Turkey, Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland. In Germany, the ensemble has performed at the Konzerthaus Berlin , at the Handel Festival in Halle an der Saale and in Göttingen , at the Bremen Music Festival , in the Baden-Baden Festival Hall and in the Mannheim Rosengarten .

At the Jazzherbst 2005 the choir gave concerts with Dave Brubeck . On February 7th, 2009 the choir held a gala concert in the Carabinierisaal of the residence to mark its 25th anniversary. Since 2010 the choir can be heard in several a cappella concerts in the province of Salzburg every autumn . Works from all epochs of music up to those of living composers are performed under an annually changing theme. In March 2014, the choir performed for the first time as a guest of the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein and in the Festspielhaus St. Pölten . In December 2014 Glaßner and his ensemble presented the CD pater noster , a series of a cappella works, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary . Fixed points of the concert year of the Salzburg Bach Choir are the traditional performance of Mozart 's Mozart 's C minor Mass (KV 417) during the festival and his Requiem in D minor (KV 626) as part of the Dialoge Festival of the International Mozarteum Foundation on the anniversary of Mozart's death on the 5th . December.

Grosses Festspielhaus : Messiah with the Mozarteum Orchestra and the Salzburg Bach Choir , conducted by Matthew Halls

At the Salzburg Festival, Glaßner took on several choral productions for operas ( Idomeneo , Theodora , Labyrinth , Gawain and others), but also for sacred and contemporary works, such as in 2013 for the world premiere of the Passion Giordano Bruno for bass baritone, speaker, mixed choir and orchestra by Gerhard Wimberger as part of the Mozart matinees .

Award

• 1988: Erwin Ortner Prize

Web links

• Salzburg Festival , short biography of the artist
• Vienna choir school , short biography of the artist