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About
With approximately 50 concerts each season, regular CD-recordings and world tours the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin is one of the most renowned choirs in the world.
The ensemble is celebrated internationally for its multifaceted repertoire and its outstanding and precise acoustic sound. It is known for its historically informed interpretations of the Renaissance and Baroque period. Its presentations of works from the classical period and Romanticism lead listeners to a new conception of the 19th-century sound world frequently. Furthermore, the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin commissions demanding world premieres each season which will broaden the cultural legacy permanently.
In 1948, the Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor (broadcast in the American sector), short RIAS, instructed the conductor Herbert Froitzheim to form a chamber choir. Leading artistic personalities such as Günther Arndt, Uwe Gronostay, Marcus Creed, Daniel Reuss and Hans-Christoph Rademann shaped and coined the choir with their chief conducting.
Since the 2017/18 season, Justin Doyle has been the chief conductor and artistic director of the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin. Extraordinary concert programmes, his Japan-debut in autumn of 2018 and two recordings by now – Benjamin Britten’s “Hymn to Cecilia” and Joseph Haydn’s “Missa Cellensis” – were celebrated by the audience and critics. The release of Georg Friedrich Händel’s “Messiah” is planned for autumn 2020.
Alongside concerts at renowned major venues, the ensemble developed the idea of the Forum Concerts in 2004. In collaboration with the ensemble’s Friends Association, events exploring new concert forms and concerts take place with choir members in unusual locations all over Berlin. The Forum Concerts have long stopped being events merely for the initiated; they have meanwhile acquired cult status.
The RIAS Kammerchor Berlin takes part in music outreach projects with passion and responsibility. Mentorships for school choirs, concert introductions with school students, workshops with aspiring conductors and support for young singers in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin Studio are only some of the elements in their successful education programme.
Numerous awards and prizes document the artistic journey and the choir’s high international reputation: The German Record Critics’ Award, the Gramophone Award, the Choc de l’annee or the Prix Caecilia are only a few of many honours. ln 2012, the choir received the “Nachtigall” honorary prize from the Jury of the German Record Critics’ Award.
An enduring and fruitful collaboration binds the choir to the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Ensemble Resonanz as weil as distinguished conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, René Jacobs, Yannick NézetSéguin, lván Fischer, and Rinaldo Alessandrini.
The RIAS Kammerchor is an ensemble of the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH (ROC). Other partners are Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin and the Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg broadcasting company.