About
The Harvestehuder Chamber Choir is a mixed chamber choir from Hamburg that has existed since 1980.
The choir was founded in 1980 by the church music director and composer Claus Bantzer, who was cantor at St. Johannis-Harvestehude. The chamber choir rehearsed at this church, played concerts on a regular basis and also played a musical role in the service. Until 2008, St. Johannis-Harvestehude was also the sponsor of the chamber choir, when Bantzer retired to St. Johannis, the sponsorship was transferred to a sponsoring association.
The focus of the chamber choir is on the performance of experimental music that combines different epochs and styles, as well as merging music with other arts through forms of cross-over. In addition to classical and romantic choral music, the choir's repertoire also includes numerous compositions from the 20th century, especially jazz music.
There were u. a. Performed concert tours to France and Italy. One of the highlights was the world premiere of the oratorio Stella maris by Helge Burggrabe in September 2006 in Chartres on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the cathedral there.
Claus Bantzer gave up the direction of the choir in December 2017. Since 2018 Edzard Burchards has been the director of the choir, which is not professionally connected to St. Johannis-Harvestehude. With that, the chamber choir left the community, and found a new home in the Epiphany Church in Hamburg-Winterhude.