Choir Association in the Evangelical Church in Germany
The choir association in the Evangelical Church in Germany (CEK), formerly the Association of Evangelical Church Choirs in Germany. V. (VeK) is the umbrella organization of the regional associations or choral works in the Evangelical Church in Germany .
history
On September 27, 1883, at the second church choir day in Frankfurt am Main, the Evangelical Church Choral Society in Germany was formed by the association of the Southwest German Church Choral Society with five regional associations from North and East Germany. From the beginning he saw his task also in the training of church musicians in general, with questions of the organ system , the hymn book , the building of the church and the order of worship . One of his central events at that time was the organization of the annual church choir days. Since 1887 a correspondence sheet has appeared as a separate periodical. In 1900 the association was involved in the founding of the New Bach Society , with which it was closely linked in terms of personnel in the following decades. In 1909 the central committee of the VeK suggested the publication of the texts of Bach's cantatas . The integration of Bach's cantatas into the church service was repeatedly discussed.
After the First World War, the number of members initially fell sharply. Several member choirs came in or left. Only a few start-ups were added. In 1925 the Essen pastor Johannes Plath took over the chairmanship. Under him a separate melody book was created for the foreign hymn book ( German Evangelical Hymnal ) introduced in 1915 . It formed the basis for the standardization of the melodies for all valid hymn books by the board of the VeK (1928/30) appointed by the German Evangelical Church Committee to the Permanent Melody Commission of the Federation of Churches. In this context, the idea was also propagated to adopt the German Evangelical Church Hymn book as the root of all German hymn books and thus to come to a uniform hymn book for all regional churches. The VeK board promoted these considerations by founding the German Working Group for Hymnal Reform affiliated to the association . In the years 1926 to 1931, around half of the Protestant church hymn books in Germany were revised according to the association's proposals.
During the time of National Socialism , the association was merged with the Church Musicians and the Trombone Choir Association to form the Reich Association for Protestant Church Music in 1933, chaired by Adolf Strube . A new statute replaced the previous presidium with a multi-member changing board from the regional associations by a Reichsobmann who was solely responsible and who was supported by the central council consisting of the regional chairmen. The first Reich chairman of the association was the Hannoversche Oberlandeskirchenrat Christhard Mahrenholz , who headed the association until 1974. The state associations remained independent in all matters relating to worship. The central association was only active through the creation of guidelines and an advisory function. With the admission of the regional associations of Lippe and the Reformed Church of Northwest Germany, the last previously remote church choir associations were also integrated into the overall association.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the VeK was again significantly involved in the creation of the standard hymn book . In 1939 the board decided to act on behalf of the whole church. The draft submitted by the hymn book committee set up for this purpose was accepted in principle as a hymn book for Protestant Christianity by the 2nd Treysa church assembly and then revised further with the cooperation of the working group for hymn book reform and the hymn book committee of the Eastern Churches under Oskar Söhngen and in 1948 by the two Hessian regional churches and in 1949 Introduced by the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD).
Today the association represents around 250,000 singers and instrumentalists in around 9,860 choirs and instrumental groups. The association includes the church choir associations of the EKD, the choral works of the Evangelical Churches of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions in Alsace-Lorraine and Austria, as well as the Christian Singers Association and the Evangelical Singers Association. Since 2006 the choir association in the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland eV has also included church instrumental groups.
The CEK promotes church music by publishing choral music and organizing singing and choir conducting weeks. The president of the CEK is KMD Christian Finke from Berlin.
literature
- Christhard Mahrenholz : 75 years of the Association of Evangelical Church Choirs in Germany . Ceremonial address at the 63rd central conference of the association on September 22, 1958 in Bielefeld. In: Music and Church 1/1959.