RIAS Kammerchor
Encyclopedia
The RIAS Kammerchor is a professional chamber choir
of the RIAS
in Berlin
, founded originally for contemporary music, with an international reputation.
, mostly to serve contemporary music. Besides the standard repertory, many works of contemporary composers were premiered. Some composers dedicated their work to the RIAS Kammerchor. The choir participated in the opening concert of the Berliner Philharmonie
.
with Karl Ristenpart
, 68 cantata
s, the Christmas Oratorio
and the St John Passion.
The RIAS Kammerchor has collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic and RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester (Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
) first with conductors such as Ferenc Fricsay
, Karl Böhm
, Herbert von Karajan
and Lorin Maazel
, later with Claudio Abbado
, James Levine
and Daniel Barenboim
.
The choir premiered works of contemporary composers such as Paul Hindemith
, Boris Blacher, Mauricio Kagel
, Ernst Krenek
, Pierre Boulez
, Hans Werner Henze
and Aribert Reimann
, several works were written for the RIAS Kammerchor. They have also performed works of Arnold Schoenberg
, Bernd Alois Zimmermann
, Dieter Schnebel
, Arvo Pärt
, Tan Dun
and Erkki-Sven Tüür
.
With conductor Daniel Reuss the repertory was extended to of early and Baroque music, collaborating with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe
, René Jacobs, Nikolaus Harnoncourt
, Frans Brüggen
and John Eliot Gardiner
.
In 1991 they recorded with the Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, conducted by Peter Schreier
, Bach's Magnificat
and the Lutheran Masses.
In 2010 the RIAS Kammerchor participated in the first recording of the orchestra versions of Pärt's Stabat mater
for choir and string orchestra (1985/2008) and Cantique des degrés for choir and orchestra (1999/2002) with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
, conducted by Kristjan Järvi
.
In 2010 the RIAS Kammerchor performed Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine, 400 years after its premiere, at the Rheingau Musik Festival
in Eberbach Abbey
, with María Cristina Kiehr
, Gerlinde Sämann
, James Elliott, Andreas Karasiak
, Harry van der Kamp
, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
, conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann.
Chamber choir
A chamber choir or group of chamber singers is the choral equivalent of a chamber ensemble, using voices instead of instruments. This prestigious choir will usually consist of 20-40 elite and dedicated singers. Several chamber choir formats exist, ranging from barbershop groups to exclusively...
of the RIAS
Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor
RIAS was a radio and television station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War II in 1946 to provide the German population in and around Berlin with news and political reporting and was initially only broadcast on...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, founded originally for contemporary music, with an international reputation.
History
The RIAS Kammerchor, then named RIAS-Kammerchor, was founded in 1948 as a choir of the broadcasting station RIASRundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor
RIAS was a radio and television station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War II in 1946 to provide the German population in and around Berlin with news and political reporting and was initially only broadcast on...
, mostly to serve contemporary music. Besides the standard repertory, many works of contemporary composers were premiered. Some composers dedicated their work to the RIAS Kammerchor. The choir participated in the opening concert of the Berliner Philharmonie
Berliner Philharmonie
The Berliner Philharmonie is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany. Home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the building is acclaimed for both its acoustics and its architecture....
.
Artistic directors
- 1948–1954: Herbert Froitzheim
- 1954–1972: Günther Arndt (de:Günther Arndt)
- 1972–1986: Uwe Gronostay (:de:Uwe Gronostay)
- 1987–2003: Marcus CreedMarcus CreedMarcus Creed is an English conductor.Born in Eastbourne, Sussex , he was educated at King's College in Cambridge, Christ Church in Oxford, and Guildhall School in London. He moved to Germany in 1976 and worked firstly as a coach and chorusmaster at the Deutsche Oper Berlin...
- 2003–2006: Daniel ReussDaniel ReussDaniel Reuss is primarily known as a choral conductor.-Biography:Daniel Reuss studied with Barend Schuurman at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands....
- since 2007: Hans-Christoph Rademann (contract until 2015) (:de:Hans-Christoph Rademann)
Music
Between 1947 and 1952 the choir and the RIAS-Kammerorchester recorded works of BachJohann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
with Karl Ristenpart
Karl Ristenpart
Karl Ristenpart was a German conductor.Born in Kiel, Germany, he studied at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin and in Vienna. He was heavily involved in creating three orchestras in his lifetime, most notably the Chamber Orchestra of the Saar. With this group he created one of the recorded...
, 68 cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
s, the Christmas Oratorio
Christmas Oratorio
The Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 incorporating music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a...
and the St John Passion.
The RIAS Kammerchor has collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic and RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester (Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra can refer to one of two orchestras:* The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, known from 1956 to 1993 as the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and situated in West Berlin during the Cold War...
) first with conductors such as Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leo Weiner. Fricsay had a meteoric rise to fame, making his first appearance as a...
, Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
, Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
and Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
, later with Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
, James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...
and Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....
.
The choir premiered works of contemporary composers such as Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, Boris Blacher, Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...
, Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
and Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann is a German opera composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of King Lear was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who sang the title role....
, several works were written for the RIAS Kammerchor. They have also performed works of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...
, Dieter Schnebel
Dieter Schnebel
Dieter Schnebel is a composer. From 1976 until his retirement in 1995, Schnebel served as professor of experimental music at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste.-Career:...
, Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
, Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...
and Erkki-Sven Tüür
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Erkki-Sven Tüür is an Estonian composer.Tüür was born in Kärdla on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He studied flute and percussion at the Tallinn Music School from 1976 to 1980 and composition with Jaan Rääts at the Tallinn Academy of Music and privately with Lepo Sumera from 1980 to 1984...
.
With conductor Daniel Reuss the repertory was extended to of early and Baroque music, collaborating with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
, René Jacobs, Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...
, Frans Brüggen
Frans Brüggen
Frans Brüggen is a well-known Dutch conductor, recorder player and baroque flautist.-Biography:Brüggen studied recorder and flute at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum. He also studied musicology at the University of Amsterdam. In 1955, at the age of 21, he was appointed professor at the Royal...
and John Eliot Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
.
In 1991 they recorded with the Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, conducted by Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier is a German tenor and conductor.-Early life:Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist...
, Bach's Magnificat
Magnificat (Bach)
The Magnificat in D major, BWV 243, is a major vocal work of Johann Sebastian Bach. It was composed for orchestra, a five-part choir and four or five soloists. The text is the canticle of Mary, mother of Jesus, as told by Luke the Evangelist .Bach composed an initial version in E flat major in 1723...
and the Lutheran Masses.
In 2010 the RIAS Kammerchor participated in the first recording of the orchestra versions of Pärt's Stabat mater
Stabat Mater (Pärt)
Stabat Mater is a musical setting of the Stabat Mater sequence composed by Arvo Pärt in 1985, a commission of the Alban Berg Foundation. The piece is scored for a trio of singers: soprano, alto, and tenor; and a trio of string instruments violin, viola, and violoncello; it has a duration of...
for choir and string orchestra (1985/2008) and Cantique des degrés for choir and orchestra (1999/2002) with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1946 by American occupation forces as the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester . It was also known as the American Sector Symphony Orchestra...
, conducted by Kristjan Järvi
Kristjan Järvi
Kristjan Järvi is an Estonian-American conductor. Järvi is the younger son of Neeme Järvi, and the brother of conductor Paavo Järvi and flutist Maarika Järvi....
.
In 2010 the RIAS Kammerchor performed Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine, 400 years after its premiere, at the Rheingau Musik Festival
Rheingau Musik Festival
The Rheingau Musik Festival is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres...
in Eberbach Abbey
Eberbach Abbey
Eberbach Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery near Eltville am Rhein in the Rheingau, Germany. On account of its impressive Romanesque and early Gothic buildings it is considered one of the most significant architectural heritage sites in Hesse, Germany...
, with María Cristina Kiehr
Maria Cristina Kiehr
María Cristina Kiehr is a soprano vocalist associated with Baroque music. After receiving her early musical training in Argentina, she moved in 1983 to Europe and studied under René Jacobs at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, specializing in the Baroque repertoire. She performs and records for the...
, Gerlinde Sämann
Gerlinde Sämann
Gerlinde Sämann is a German soprano known for her performances in concerts and operas. She is particularly associated with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach...
, James Elliott, Andreas Karasiak
Andreas Karasiak
- Biography :Andreas Karasiak studied voice at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz with Claudia Eder. He studied Baroque music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with René Jacobs in Basel....
, Harry van der Kamp
Harry van der Kamp
Harry van der Kamp is a Dutch bass singer in opera and concert.- Singing career :Van der Kamp studied first law and psychology in Amsterdam...
, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is a German chamber orchestra founded in East Berlin in 1982...
, conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann.
External links
- RIAS Kammerchor website
- RIAS Kammerchor at Harmonia MundiHarmonia MundiHarmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
- RIAS Kammerchor at Brandenburgische Sommerkonzerte (in German)
- Entries for the RIAS Kammerchor on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...