30 years of Fall of the Berlin Wall

Gijs Leenaars has been at the helm of the Rundfunkchor Berlin as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director since the 2015/16 season. Since then, he has worked with outstanding conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Gijs Leenaars conducts cross-genre concert performances such as the “human requiem” or “LUTHER dancing with the gods” and is responsible for recordings of a cappella repertoire and choral symphonic works. In the 2019/20 season, he will conduct the major festival of choral cultures and the transdisciplinary project “TIME TRAVELLERS”. He will also conduct Bruckner’s Mass in E minor in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a work that will also be released on CD with this instrumentation.

Born in Nijmegen in 1978, the Dutchman is one of the most interesting choral conductors of the younger generation. He studied piano, choral and orchestral conducting and singing in Nijmegen and Amsterdam. His collaboration with the Dutch Radio Choir in Hilversum began immediately after graduating. From 2012 to 2015, he was chief conductor of the ensemble and worked as such with Mariss Jansons, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Bernard Haitink. He is also a regular guest conductor of the Collegium Vocale Gent, the Cappella Amsterdam and the Nederlands Kamerkoor. He has also worked with orchestras such as the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag and the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino.

He is particularly interested in performing contemporary music. For example, Gijs Leenaars conducted the Dutch premiere of Wolfang Rihm’s “Vigilia”, and for the complete recording of Kurtág’s works under Reinbert de Leeuw, he worked on the choral works with the Dutch Radio Choir. In his programs, he combines classical repertoire with rarely heard works of choral literature.

Joo-hoon Shin was born in Incheon, South Korea. He began studying classical voice at the Royal Welsh College of Music in Cardiff before later completing his studies with honors at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar in the class of Gudrun Fischer. He was already a soloist in numerous Bachcantatas and oratorios during his time as a student. Today he sings in concerts and song recitals in the Philharmonie Berlin, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Berliner Dom and in churches in Berlin and Brandenburg. He joined the Rundfunkchor Berlin in 2014 as a permanent member and also performs as a soloist regularly.

With around 60 concerts annually, numerous CDs and three Grammys, Rundfunkchor Berlin is one of the world’s foremost choruses. Its wide-ranging repertoire, flexible and richly nuanced sound, flawless precision and enthralling delivery have made it the chosen partner of the major orchestras and conductors in its home city but also internationally, where it functions as a musical ambassador for Berlin in the great concert halls of the world. It is so much more than just a concert and studio chorus.

Along with its symphonic choral central repertoire, Rundfunkchor Berlin is constantly forging new paths by means of projects that burst the bounds of the classical concert format and allow choral music to interact with other art forms. The choreographic realization of the Brahms Requiem as “human requiem” by Jochen Sandig with Sasha Waltz & Guests represents a milestone. Following acclaimed performances in Brussels, Taipei and Hong Kong, the work was performed during the 2016-17 season in Berlin, New York and South America. In Christian Jost’s LOVER, a music-theatre piece premiered in 2014 in Berlin’s Kraftwerk, Western symphonic choral music meets a traditional Asian percussion ensemble. In its most recent project, “cosmic lights”, in 2016, Rundfunkchor Berlin presented a multimedia programme based on celestial phenomena including the Northern Lights.

Rundfunkchor Berlin is constantly developing new and unusual ways of experiencing choral music and stimulating choruses all over the world to follow its lead. In formats such as the Sing-Along Concert in the Berlin Philharmonie, the Liederbörse (Song Exchange) for Berlin’s school choirs and the project Hand in Hand, it is working intensively with committed amateur choirs. With its International Master Class for choral conducting and the Academy and Schola for young singers, it is fostering the next generation of professionals. And to help make singing an intrinsic component of the primary school day, it created the initiative SING! in 2011.

Founded in 1925, the chorus celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2015. Since its inception, it has been shaped by conductors like Helmut Koch, Dietrich Knothe (1982-93), Robin Gritton (1994-2001) and Simon Halsey (2001-15). At the beginning of 2015-16 season, Gijs Leenaars assumed the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Director. Simon Halsey retains his ties to Rundfunkchor Berlin as Conductor Laureate and Guest Conductor. Rundfunkchor Berlin is an ensemble of Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin and is sponsored by Deutschlandradio, the German Federal Republic, the state of Berlin and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.