Artists biographies
The Bayerischer Rundfunk Chorus

The Bayerischer Rundfunk (Radio Bavaria) Chorus was formed in 1946 and for more than sixty years has been performing oratorios and the great choral-symphonic repertoire from the Baroque to the present day, first and foremost with the Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, whose chief conductors have also always directed the chorus’s artistic progress: from Eugen Jochum via Rafael Kubelík, Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel to Mariss Jansons. The chorus is famous for its flexibility and the stylistic variety of its repertoires. Within a short space of time, the ensemble is able to change from the ascetic sound of a Renaissance madrigal to a Romantic choral piece or the technical challenges of contemporary music, while always maintaining its particular homogeneity. Since the 1998/99 season, the chorus has had its own subscription series at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, presenting, alongside the classical canon, works with an emphasis on historical performance practice, as well as crossover projects and jazz pieces. In the autumn of 2005, the Dutch conductor Peter Dijkstra became the musical director; he is a declared ‘anti-specialist’ who guarantees the versatility of the programmes. Regular guest performances at well-known European music festivals characterize the ensemble’s profile: one need only think of the appearances with Mariss Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Salzburg Easter Festival, with Paavo Järvi and the Hessischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra at the Rheingau Musik Festival, and with Riccardo Muti at the Baltic Sea Festival. The chorus’s CDs have won awards on a number of occasions. Most recently, the recording of Schumann’s ‘Das Paradies und die Peri’, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, won an ECHO Klassik.