Georg Hage

Georg Hage (* 1979 in Halle (Westphalia) ) is a German conductor, church musician and university professor.

He is cantor at the Aachener Annakirche (Protestant main church), artistic director of the Aachener Bachtage and conductor of several renowned ensembles in the Rhineland metropolitan region: the choirs of the Aachener Bachverein , the Bonner Kammerchor and the Kölner Kantorei . He teaches choral conducting at the Detmold University of Music.

Live and act

As a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation , he completed the courses in church music, music for teaching at high schools, organ (concert diploma), song and concert singing and conducting in Freiburg, Trossingen and Vienna. He trained as a bass-baritone with Werner Hollweg and Dorothea Wirtz; his organ teachers were Klemens Schnorr , Martin Schmeding and Michael Radulescu .

In addition to his work as a cantor at the Luther Church in Freiburg and in the Heiliggeistgemeinde Kirchzarten, he completed his postgraduate studies in choral conducting with Hans Michael Beuerle and Manfred Schreier. Masterclasses with Wolfgang Schäfer, Hans-Christoph Rademann , Anders Eby , Jos van Veldhoven and Michael Gläser , among others, expanded his spectrum and led to a collaboration with the Nederlands Kamerkoor and the Netherlands Radio Choir ( Eric Ericson Masterclass). He was a prizewinner at the Bayreuth-Regensburg Choir Conducting Competition and the Choir Conducting Competition in Budapest in 2011. As choir director of the Music Academy of the German National Academic Foundation, he conducted the academy choir in the Herkulessaal in Munich and in the Philharmonie Essen. Concert tours have taken him to other European countries, the USA, Israel, Canada and Brazil.

Since 2008 his field of activity has been the Aachener Bachverein and the Aachener Annakirche , where he and his ensembles create and convey a wide range of demanding choral music and church music from all epochs, starting with Monteverdi through the intensive care of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach through to choral symphonic highlights such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Verdi's Messa da Requiem, Golgotha ​​by Frank Martin or The Book with Seven Seals by Franz Schmidt. His highly acclaimed Elgar cycle with The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Kingdom (the first two mentioned as Aachen premieres), which was documented on CD, earned him and his choirs a reputation as specialists in the work of Edward Elgar and became exemplary in the professional world exposed.

As the artistic director of the Aachen Bachtage, he is the host and musical partner of prominent artists and ensembles every year. He is a member of the artistic direction of the International Chorbiennale, Deputy Chairman of the JS Bach Foundation in Aachen and a regular guest conductor of the Aachen Symphony Orchestra.

As the conductor of the Bonn Chamber Choir (succeeding Philipp Ahmann since 2012), his focus is on working with and on a flexible and “breathing” choral sound. In his thematic programs, he is particularly interested in the dialogue of the well-known a cappella repertoire from early music to modern times with rarely heard works and premieres.

The Cologne Kantorei created under his direction (as successor to Volker Hempfling since 2015) of content associated concert programs and concerts, among others at the Cologne Eight bridges festivals, with the Bochum days for New Music and the Cologne Philharmonic. On the occasion of the choir's 50th anniversary in 2018, several commissioned compositions were premiered - broadcast live by WDR - and a much-noticed Gloria program was published on CD together with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra.

For many years he has been passing on his artistic experience as a lecturer and university choir director; From 2013 to 2015 he was professor of conducting at the University of Protestant Church Music in Bayreuth , and since then he has taught at the University of Music Detmold .

Web links

• Online biography at the Aachen Bachverein
• Elgar's The Apostles in Aachen
• Portrait with the Bonn Chamber Choir
• Portrait at the Cologne Kantorei