Horst Meinardus

Horst Meinardus (2010)

Horst Meinardus (born May 28, 1941 in Cologne ) is a German choir director . After completing his studies (including with Michael Schneider ) in Cologne, he began his professional career as a church musician and at the same time as the conductor of a concert choir near Bonn, and soon became successful as a conductor of choral concerts. He gained great recognition for his work as choir director at the Cologne Opera , whose ensemble he belonged to from 1973 until the end of the 2005/06 season.

After brief teaching at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf , Horst Meinardus became a lecturer at the Cologne University of Music in 1978 . He heads the opera choir school and a class for oratorio ensemble. In the summer of 1999 Horst Meinardus was offered a professorship at the Cologne University of Music.

Horst Meinardus on May 31, 2008 in the Cologne Philharmonic

Meinardus has been the first conductor of the Cologne Philharmonic Choir since 1990. He has been associated with this choir from an early age, initially as a simple member, later as the musical assistant to Philipp Röhl, who was also his teacher at the Cologne University of Music as a choir teacher. From 1976 Horst Meinardus was the second conductor of the choir. Meinardus expanded the repertoire of the Cologne Philharmonic Choir, built up and maintained by Röhl, through performances a. a. von Bach's St. John Passion and Christmas Oratorio , Mendelssohn's Elias , Orff's Carmina Burana and through the rehearsal of a cycle of Handel oratorios that were performed in Cologne in 1985 and received great attention. Meinardus turned down several offers from well-known opera houses, including those from abroad, to work there as choir director in order to be able to continue his work with the Cologne Philharmonic Choir.

In the summer of 2000 Meinardus conducted three concerts in Tokyo and Kawasaki with choirs there at the invitation of the Tokyo Oratorio Society ( Mozart's Requiem, Bach's St. Matthew Passion , Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and Mass in C major, Rheinberger's Requiem in B flat minor) during a three-week stay . Further invitations to Tokyo followed in 2003 and 2005 for guest conductors with the Creation by Joseph Haydn , the Oratorio Paulus by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , the Stabat Mater by Antonín Dvořák , the Missa solemnis by Beethoven and the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten .

The Richard Wagner Association made Meinardus an honorary member in October 2001. In March 2010 Meinardus took over the artistic direction of the choir of the Bonn Bach Society .

Web links

• Philharmonic Choir Cologne
• Works by and about Horst Meinardus in the catalog of the German National Library