Brahms’ Requiem

Vladimir Jurowski has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since 2017. He has meanwhile extended his contract until 2027. In parallel, he has been General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich since 2021.

After receiving training at the Moscow Conservatory The conductor, pianist and musicologist Vladimir Jurowski emigrated to Germany in 1990. Here he continued his studies at the music conservatories in Dresden and Berlin.  In 1995 he made his international debut at the British Wexford Festival with Rimski-Korsakov’s Mainacht and in the same year at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Nabucco. Subsequently he was, among other things, First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997- 2001) and Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001-2013). In 2003 Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and has been its Principal Conductor since 2007 until 2021. He was also Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra Yevgeny Svetlanov of the Russian Federation until 2021, Artistic Director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Great Britain. He works regularly with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the ensemble unitedberlin.

Vladimir Jurowski has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and North America, including the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

He is a recurring guest conductor in in London, Berlin, Dresden, Luzern, Schleswig-Holstein und Grafenegg as well as at the Rostopowitsch-Festival. Although Vladimir Jurowski is invited as a guest conductor by top orchestras from all over the world, in future he would like to concentrate his activities on that geographical area which is acceptable to him from an ecological point of view.

In 2022/2023 he will perform with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in concerts in various cities in Germany, Italy and Antwerp in the Netherlands. The joint CD recordings of Vladimir Jurowski and the RSB began in 2015 with Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3, followed by works by Britten, Hindemith, Strauss, Mahler and soon again Schnittke.

Vladimir Jurowski has been the recipient of numerous awards for his achievements, including various international record prizes. In 2016, he was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Prince Charles at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2018, the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards named him Conductor of the Year. In summer 2020, Jurowski was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit by the Romanian President in recognition of his work as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival.

The Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson studied at the University of Music in Freiburg. From 2000 to 2002 she was an ensemble-member of the Volksoper in Vienna, from 2002 to 2007 ensemble-member at the Komische Oper in Berlin, where she sang leading roles under Kirill Petrenko in many of his most important productions. Since 2007 the artist is working freelance.

Maria Bengtsson has performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Opera National de Paris, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera Munich, the Oper Frankfurt, the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Cologne Opera, the Opéra National de Lyon, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Vlaamse Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Semper Opera and at the festival of Aix- Provence.

Her most important roles are among others Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Countess (Le nozze di Figaro), Pamina (The Magic Flute) and Ilia (Idomeneo) by Mozart. The title part in Daphne, the title part in Arabella,  Countess in Capriccio and Feldmarschallin ( Der Rosenkavalier ) by Richard Strauss.  The Governess in Turn of the screw by Benjamin Britten, Cunégonde (Candide) by Leonard Bernstein and the title role of Monteverdi’s” L’Incoronazione di Poppea”. Maria Bengtsson sang the European premiere of “The Great Gatsby” John Harbison as Daisy Buchanan in season 2015/2016 at the Semper Opera in Dresden.

As a concert singer and song interpreter she performed among others at the Elbphilharmoniea and the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Philharmonie Berlin, Carinthian Summer in Carinthia, the Berliner Festspiele, the Konzerthaus Wien, the Musikverein Wien, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Klangbogenfestival Wien, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. Maria Bengtsson also performed  with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Kirill Petrenko in Israel.

Other Performances included Donna Anna at the Staatsoper Berlin, Verdi Requiem at the Staatsoper in Hamburg,e  Turn of the screw at the Staatsoper in Berlin, Liederabend with Sarah Tysman in Wiesbaden, Arabella at the Maifestspiel in Wiesbaden, Vier letzte Lieder in Wiesbaden and at the Dresden Philharmonie.

Matthias Goerne is one of the most internationally sought-after vocalists and a frequent guest at renowned festivals and concert halls. He has collaborated with leading orchestras all over the world. Conductors of the first rank as well as eminent pianists are among his musical partners.

Matthias Goerne has appeared on the world’s principal opera stages, including the the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Teatro Real in Madrid; Paris National Opera; and the Vienna State Opera. His carefully chosen roles range from Wolfram, Amfortas, Kurwenal, Wotan, Orest, and Jochanaan to the title roles in Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” and Béla Bartók’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle”.

Goerne’s artistry has been documented on numerous recordings, many of which have received prestigious awards, including four Grammy nominations, an ICMA award, and the Diapason d’or arte. After his legendary recordings with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Alfred Brendel for Universal Music, he has completed the recording of a series of selected Schubert songs on 12 CDs for harmonia mundi (The Goerne/ Schubert Edition) with eminent pianists. His latest recordings of Brahms songs with Christoph Eschenbach and of Mahler songs with the BBC Symphony have received rave reviews.

From 2001 through 2005, Matthias Goerne taught as an honorary professor of song interpretation at the Robert Schumann Academy of Music in Düsseldorf. In 2001, he was appointed an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. A native of Weimar, he studied with Hans-Joachim Beyer in Leipzig, and later with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Cantus Domus was founded 25 years ago by Lena Schoenfelder. This great, at the time almost audacious idea of forming a choir at the Haus der Jugend in Berlin-Zehlendorf was inspiring and forward-looking. On its way into the present, the choir – from the beginning under the artistic direction of Ralf Sochaczewsky – has enriched and inspired many people. Over the years, musical encounters and collaborations have taken the choir to many cities in Germany and to Belarus, Poland, Nicaragua, England, Norway, France, Georgia and the Netherlands. In the process, Cantus Domus has been accompanied by a great cultural curiosity, diverse forms of musical expression and impressive concert formats.

The Corona pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have dramatically affected the musical and cultural landscape. Like countless choirs in this country and around the world, Cantus Domus has had to cancel planned concerts and concert tours. Due to the restrictions, the choir has unfolded new formats of choral, rehearsal and recording work and thus also allowed its entire artistic creative process to take place in new ways. In a short period of time, unique digital cooperation projects have been carried out with artists such as Shara Nova, Gaby Moreno, the Georgian women’s choir Tutarchela, Nicholas Müller, Grainne Hunt and Mohannad Nasser.

Cantus Domus opens up new approaches to choral music for its audiences with immersive productions and innovative collaborations. As a classical concert choir, it often seeks ways beyond common performance routines, for example by performing in unusual concert venues (J. S. Bach: “B Minor Mass”, Kraftwerk Berlin, 2015) or by involving the audience in its concerts (J. S. Bach: “St Matthew Passion”, Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie, 2018). One of the choir’s trademarks is the format of the so called Concept Concerts, which was developed by Paul Liebrecht in 2008 and has been constantly refined. Here Cantus Domus regularly stages elaborately choreographed and musically demanding performances in unusual spaces (Arthur Honegger: “Le Roi David” in the Vollgutlager of the Alte Kindl Brewery in cooperation with choreographer Christoph Winkler, 2017; “Synthesis” for choir, synthesiser and DJ in the Kindl Centre for Contemporary Art and Culture, 2015 or “Singingpool” in the Stadtbad Steglitz, 2008).

In the last four years before the Corona pandemic, since the premiere of a choral opera staged and excellently reviewed by Cantus Domus (Frank Schwemmer: “Macbeth”, 2016, directed by C. Rindfleisch, libretto: U. Küchler/J. Fraune), Cantus Domus performed  in five countries and cooperated with around 40 orchestras, partner choirs and bands in around 50 performances and concerts. Inspiring international encounters have recently taken place with Wood River from New York, Vox Humana (Oslo), Fahmi Alqhai and the Accademia del Piacere (from Spain, Syria and elsewhere) as well as with the Georgian choirs Shavnabada and Tutarchela. In 2018, Cantus Domus and Bang on a Can All-Stars (New York) gave the German premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize for Music-winning oratorio Anthracite Fields in Berlin.

Cantus Domus has worked with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) and Vladimir Jurowski (2019), the Kammerakademie Potsdam and Antonello Manacorda (2018), the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and Neeme Järvi (2018), the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (2013), the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Jonathan Nott (2012), and the Rundfunkchor Berlin and Simon Halsey (2007), among others.

In addition to its numerous concerts with large ensembles, Cantus Domus also performs with various chamber ensembles in smaller projects. In the process, the choir increasingly moves into the border areas between classical and indie/pop, for example with performances at festivals such as People, Kaltern Pop and Haldern Pop, as well as collaborations with Bon Iver, Charlotte Greve, Damien Rice, Helga Davis, Kjartan Sveinsson, Kurt Wagner, Lisa Hannigan, Loney Dear, Mads Brauer, Shara Nova, Stargaze, The Slow Show and Tocotronic, among others.

The choir of Junges Ensemble Berlin is a standard-bearer for young, outstanding music making in Berlin. It comprises around 90 students and young professionals between the ages of 18 and 40, who share a love of music. Its members are united in their commitment to a high standard of music-making as well as a joy in challenging choral repertoire. In 2017 the musical direction of the choir was taken by Vinzenz Weissenburger.

In 2018 the Junges Ensemble Berlin celebrated its 60th anniversary. The choir can look back on considerable successes that show its musical diversity; from choral-symphonic works such as Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem” or Bach’s Passions to a cappella works. It also crosses genre boundaries, for example singing with Barbra Streisand in the Mercedes-Benz Arena Berlin in 2013. In spring 2014, the ensemble released its first professional CD recording; Arthur Honegger’s symphonic psalm “King David” on Rondeau Classics.

As well as concerts in Germany, the choir often makes guest appearances abroad. In autumn 2017 the choir travelled to China, performing in renowned concert halls in Beijing, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Changsha. Previously, the choir accepted an invitation from the Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellín to perform in Colombia.

In May 2018 the choir achieved fifth place with “very good success” in the highly competitive category “Mixed Choirs – from 32 participants” at the German Choir Competition in Freiburg, having finished with “outstanding success” at the Berlin Choir Competition in 2017. This was a continuation of the success at the 2014 German Choir Competition in Weimar, where the choir also finished with “very good success” and won a special prize for its interpretation of the folk song “Der Kuckuck und der Esel”.

The choir of Junges Ensemble Berlin also initiates projects that engage with wider society, leading a performance of Handel’s oratorio “Semele” with refugees in April 2017, and the co-operative “Images of Light” project with the Otto-Hahn-Schule Berlin-Neukölln in both Berlin and Istanbul in March 2011. In addition, the choir invited students of the Comenius-Schule Berlin-Wilmersdorf and the Jane-Addams-Schule Berlin-Friedrichshain to take part in a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the Berlin Konzerthaus in November 2012.

The choir of Junges Ensemble Berlin is one of the leading amateur choirs in Germany. It is a member of the Berlin Choir Society (Chorverband Berlin e.V.) and has been supported by the Berlin state government since 2009.

Ralf Sochaczewsky received conducting lessons under Christian Grube and Marc Piollet at the Berlin University of the Arts. Later he studied choir conducting under Jörg-Peter Weigle and orchestral conducting under Prof. Reuter at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”.

He directs the Berlin choir Cantus Domus, with which he won a 1st prize at the Berlin Choir Competition in 2017 and a 3rd prize at the 8th Choir Competition of the Deutscher Musikrat in Dortmund . From 1998 to 2012, he conducted the Ensemberlino Vocale choir and successfully participated in choir competitions (1st prize at Chorfest Bremen (Bremen Choir Festival) 2008).

He regularly works with choirs like the Berlin Vocalconsort, the Cappella Amsterdam, the RIAS Kammerchor, and the Berliner Rundfunkchor.

In 2016, he conducted the European premiere of the oratorio “Anthracite Fields” by Julia Wolfe, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, with the DR Vocalensemble and Bang on a Can-All Stars.

Ralf Sochaczewsky has performed with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the National Radio Orchestra Bucharest, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Minsk Philharmonic. He conducted operas at the Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opera National du Rhin, and the Lithuanian National Opera.

Ralf Sochaczewsky collaborated with various pop groups and artists such as Stargaze and André de Ridder, Bon Iver, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, and Tocotronic. With Cantus Domus, he is a regular guest at festivals such as HaldernPop and KalternPop.

He teaches choral conducting at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”. For his great service to the Berlin choir scene, the Chorverband Berlin awarded him the Geschwister Mendelssohn Medal in 2017.