Vienna Singing Academy

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Vienna Singing Academy
Choir organ concert in the Vienna Konzerthaus on October 7, 2003
Seat: AustriaAustria Vienna
Carrier: Wiener Konzerthaus
Founding: 1858
Genus: Singing Academy
Head : Heinz Ferlesch
Voices : 100 SATB
Website : www.wienersingakademie.at

The Wiener Singakademie is a concert choir in Vienna.

history

The Wiener Singakademie was founded as the first mixed choir association in Vienna on May 4, 1858 for the purpose of a "singing training institute". From the beginning, the repertoire was mainly characterized by two main focuses: the care of traditional masters and the inclusion of contemporary works. The Wiener Singakademie soon became a fixture in Viennese concert life. In 1862 the young Johannes Brahms was brought to Vienna as a choirmaster, the city that he would henceforth regard as the center of his life.

Over the years, the circle of conductors who primarily worked with the choir grew, including Gustav Mahler , Richard Strauss and Bruno Walter , who himself took on the choir direction for a few years. In addition, many well-known composers came to the conductor's podium in order to present their works to the Viennese audience together with the Wiener Singakademie. Edvard Grieg , Anton Rubinstein and Pietro Mascagni thus made their contribution to Viennese music history in the first decades of the existence of the Wiener Singakademie.

After 55 years as a free choir, the Vienna Singing Academy finally got its long-awaited home with the opening of the Wiener Konzerthaus in 1913. Integrated into the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, the choir established itself as an important partner of the house and only had to accept restrictions during the two world wars in its busy concert activity. Just like the city of Vienna itself, the choir began to live again in 1945, and the new development work led in the 50s and 60s under the leadership of Hans Gillesberger into an artistic high phase, which in terms of choir trips, program variety, great conductor personalities and performance quality left nothing to be desired. In the early days, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Paul Hindemith , later Karl Böhm , Hans Swarowsky and the young Lorin Maazel were jointly responsible for this development . In 1957 the Wiener Singakademie was one of the winners of the Karl Renner Prize of the City of Vienna.

When Agnes Grossmann took over the artistic direction in 1983, it was the first time that a woman was at the helm of the Vienna Singing Academy. The academy concept in particular was revived by Grossmann. Their concept, which placed vocal training and musical training for the choir members in the foreground, is still alive today.

Under Konzerthaus general secretary Alexander Pereira in the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 1990s, and subsequently under its artistic director Herbert Böck, the choir experienced a further upgrade of its position in the Vienna Konzerthaus. One can look back on collaborations with great artists such as Georges Prêtre , Yehudi Menuhin , Claudio Abbado , Sir Roger Norrington , Sir John Eliot Gardiner , Sir Simon Rattle and Kent Nagano .

Heinz Ferlesch has been in charge since the beginning of the 1998/1999 season . A program to support and promote young artists was set up under him. This not only includes the consistent training and further education of the choir singers, but also the integration of young, aspiring soloists and ensembles into the concert programs. Thanks to innovation and greater diversity in the design of the program, the choir's repertoire now spans a broad spectrum of music history: from Bach's St. John Passion under Ton Koopman to Britten's War Requiem under Simone Young , from Verdi's Messa da Requiem under Franz Welser-Möst to Scelsis Konx-Om-Pax under Ingo Metzmacher . Heinz Ferlesch also stands at the conductor's desk himself and leads "his" choir through a cappella literature and baroque choral orchestral works. The most recent high point in this context was the performance of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus in autumn 2006, the recording of which, in cooperation with ORF, resulted in an internationally acclaimed CD production. The Wiener Singakademie currently consists of around 100 singers.

The Wiener Singakademie broke new ground apart from the great choir-orchestra literature with the establishment of the Wiener Singakademie Kammerchor in 2006. The ensemble, consisting of members of the Wiener Singakademie, has mainly dedicated itself to the cultivation of a cappella music. In addition, the spectrum is expanded to include vocal works that require a smaller ensemble. The Wiener Singakademie Kammerchor achieved its first successes in July 2007 with a 2nd and a 4th place at the international choir competition in Spittal / Drau. For the 2008 anniversary season, a composition commission was given to Christian Mühlbacher .

In 2008 the Wiener Singakademie celebrated its 150th anniversary. The Wiener Konzerthaus launched its own anniversary subscription on this occasion. At the anniversary concert on March 8, 2008 in the Great Hall, Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion was performed. In 2011 the Singakademie toured to Dresden and Salzburg, where the Brahms Requiem was performed.

Choirmaster

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Directory of the exercising members (founded May 4, 1858) . Wiener Sing-Akademie, printed by Friedrich Förster, Vienna 1859
  2. ↑ Vienna City Hall Correspondence , December 13, 1957, sheet 2454
  3. ^ The winners of the Karl Renner Foundation . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna December 14, 1957, p. 2 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ↑ Vienna City Hall Correspondence , January 11, 1958, page 38
  5. ↑ The presentation of the Karl Renner Prizes . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 12, 1958, p. 3 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).