Johannes Baumann (musician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes Baumann (born March 3, 1925 in Riga , Latvia ; † November 19, 2019 in Hildesheim ) was a German church music director at St. Michael (Hildesheim) .

Live and act

Johannes Baumann was born as the son of the Latvian climatologist Georg Baumann and his German wife Erna Baumann, b. Reinfelde born in Riga. There he was baptized on April 9, 1925 in the baptistery of St. Gertrud Church (Riga) , where his mother was also an organist. He attended the German elementary school before he switched to the Latvian high school in Āgenskalns, where he also learned Latvian. In 1939 he had to leave his Baltic homeland and was relocated with the family to Posen / Poland, where he graduated from high school. After an examination to become a “part-time church musician”, he represented local organists. At the age of 18 he was drafted into the Second World War and joined a company on the English Channel Island of Guernsey . After the war he came to Yorkshire , England , as a prisoner of war , where he worked in agriculture in Skipton . Here he was allowed to play the church organ of the town church and to found a choir with prisoners of war.

After Baumann came to Germany in July 1948, he began studying at the church music school in Hanover . He took his first position as cantor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover in Schwarmstedt and moved to Soltau in 1954 , where he met his wife, the deacon Maria Schmidt, and married a year later. With her he had four daughters and a son. In 1957 he took a new position as a full-time district church cantor in Hannover-Linden, as well as a teaching position at the church music school. From 1964 until his retirement in 1990? most recently he was church music director at the St. Michaelis Church in Hildesheim. During this time he initiated the concert series “Summer Church Music” and recorded a number of organ pieces for the radio program “Morgenandacht” for the NDR . It was a great honor for him to be able to play the organ at the introductions of the three Latvian Archbishops Eriks Nesters, Karlis Gailitis and Jānis Vanags .

After retirement, Baumann moved with his family to Osterholz-Scharmbeck in 1988 , where he occasionally represented organists on site. Now he was able to devote himself intensively to his Latvian homeland and traveled regularly to Riga, where he maintained contacts with Protestant parishes and church musicians. He spoke for over seven years in a series broadcast on Sundays on Latvijas Radio about the cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach and also the first teacher who had started with Latvian courses in the partner communities in Germany. From 1989 he was the translator of the Latvian church newspaper Svētdienas Rīts for the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Hamburg Mission Center , thus contributing to the understanding between the two countries. The Latvian President Guntis Ulmanis awarded him the “Triju-Zvaigžņu-Order” (three-star order) in 1996 and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Riga honored him in 2012 with the award “Shield of Confidence”, presented in the St. Gertrud Church by Archbishop Vanags.

Awards

  • 1996: Awarded the three-star medal , awarded by the Latvian President
  • 2012: The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church's “Shield of Confidence” award, presented by Archbishop Vanags

Publications

  • Development of church music in Latvia within the framework of Latvian aid . In: Peter Maser, Dietrich Meyer and Roderich Schmidt: Contributions to East German Church History ( Volume 3), Association for East German Church History, Düsseldorf 1999, pp. 85–89, ISBN 3-930250-36-5 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary notice: Johannes Baumann , hildesheimer-allgemeine.de
  2. ↑ Jaunumi: Johanness Baumans 94. dzimšanas dienu svinēja dzimtenē , lelb.lv, article from March 3, 2019.
  3. ↑ Monika Fricke: From wonderful friendships and richly filled days. The former church music director Johannes Baumann is 90 years old , weser-kurier.de, article from March 3, 2015.
  4. ↑ Church music director i. R. Johannes Baumann died , landeskirche-hannovers.de, news from November 26, 2019.
  5. ↑ From the Chronicle of the St. Michael Kantorei, Hildesheim , kantorei-st-michael.de, accessed on May 23, 2020.
  6. ↑ Jaunumi: In memoriam - Johannes Baumann , lelb.lv, obituary of November 21, 2019.
  7. ↑ Svētdienas RITS translated by John Baumann , svetdienasritsdeutsch, articles of 9 February 2010
  8. ↑ Latvia: Sign of Confidence awarded to Baumann , lutheranworld.org, Lutheran World - Information, 2012/07 edition, p. 12.
personal data
SURNAME Baumann, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church music director
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga , Latvia
DATE OF DEATH 19th November 2019
Place of death Hildesheim