Oswald Gilles

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Oswald Gilles

Oswald Gilles (born September 19, 1926 in Cologne ) is a German composer , interpreter , conductor and arranger .

Live and act

Oswald Gilles was born in Cologne on the right bank of the Rhine and lived in the Ostheim district of Cologne for most of his life . Here he also worked as a teacher at the secondary school from 1968 until his retirement in 1990. He has lived in Rösrath (Forsbach) since 1995 .

From 1948 to 1951 he studied at the Cologne University of Music , including choral conducting with Peter Hammers.

From 1955 to 1964, Oswald Gilles was the musical director of the Divertissementchen , the Cologne Singspiel of the Cäcilia Wolkenburg stage play group . In the course of 1958 he took over the provisional management of the Cologne Men's Singing Association in order to take part with the choir in Vienna at the Austrian National Singing Festival. There he conducted a special concert in the Musikvereinssaal. In March 1959 he was also officially appointed conductor of the Cologne Men's Singing Association. He stayed there for a total of six years until he left at his own request in February 1964.

From 1963 to 1969 Oswald Gilles was a lecturer at the Rheinische Musikschule for the choir director course.

From 1961 to 1984 Oswald Gilles was Willi Schell's successor as Artistic Director of the Troisdorf Works Choir, which consists of over 100 singers . This could at concerts in Germany - u. a. Regular concerts in Cologne's Gürzenich and in the Beethovenhalle Bonn  - and celebrating many successes on choir trips abroad. In 24 years, Gilles conducted 198 concerts by the Werk Choir.

From 1982 to 2000, Gilles was the artistic director of the Deutz Choir in Cologne (formerly: KHD Choir). In 2000 he handed over the office to his successor Heinz Walter Florin at a farewell concert in the Philharmonie in Cologne .

During his professional career, Gilles supervised other choirs, including B. the Opladener Männer-Gesang-Verein, the men's choir of the Cologne transport company , the choir of the Cologne Railway Directorate, as well as the works choirs of 4711 and Bayer Dormagen. From 1976 to 1986 he directed the church choir Köln Ostheim.

Concerts (selection)

With the KHD Choir in 1986 in the Cologne Philharmonic

Divertissementchen (as musical director)

  • 1956: "Casanova in Kölle"
  • 1957: "Rhing Cadets"
  • 1958: "Miss Kölle"
  • 1959: "Dr Kampf um dr Duffesbach"
  • 1960: "Et Weetschaffswunder"
  • 1961: "Dr Zeppelin kütt"
  • 1962: "Brijitte-Kirmes or Dä Indians in Kölle"
  • 1963: "En dr Kayjass number zero" (Author: Hans Brodesser, Cologne dialect poet from Cologne-Ostheim)
  • 1964: "Kölsch Jeld or De Krun vun England"

Oswald Gilles has created choir pieces for around 170 pieces of music, around 65 of which have been published by various music publishers. His arrangements of the folk songs “Beim Kronenwirt” and “Der Musikant (I love hiking for my life)” deserve special mention. In addition, he has dealt extensively with the songs in the Cologne dialect. As early as the 1960s, arrangements were made for folk songs from Cologne, such as the “Kirmesleed” and the “Wanderleedche för Jung-Kölle”. In addition, several adaptations were made in 2001 on the subject of “Cologne Christmas”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ werkchor-troisdorf.de ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 860 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.werkchor-troisdorf.de
personal data
SURNAME Gilles, Oswald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, interpreter, conductor and arranger
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne