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In the thirty-two years of its existence the Heidelberger Madrigalchor e.V. (= HMC) under its conductor Gerald Kegelmann has become an important voice in concert lives of Heidelberg. Since the time its was established as a young ensemble, it does not surprise that despite all fluctuation, the hard core of "initial members", which had found themselves at that time together around Gerald Kegelmann, still exists and brings the choir life to a university town.
Gerald Kegelmann, who studied training and church music as well as German, taught from 1975 to 2000 as professor for choir directing and choir education at the College of Music Heidelberg/Mannheim, whose rector he was from 1986 to 1997. Concert tours with different choirs, and guest conducting led him into many countries of Europe, Asia as well as North and South America. The various engagements of the conductor and the fact that a part of the choir members recruited itself in the first years mainly from members of the College of Music Heidelberg/Mannheim, provided the privileged position for the HMC to develop in the artist and composer world: Many times the co-operation of the HMC with famous interpreters led to numerous personal contacts on pupil and teacher level already. Likewise composers such as Myriam Marbe, Claudio Santoro, Hans Vogt or Violeta Dinescu are always ready to entrust the premieres of their compositions to that choir and its conductor - unforgettable human and artistic experiences for everyone involved. For the function of the choir and its conductor is a nevertheless unpretentious, supported by exact sighting of the source material and is characteristic, each shoots forward or condemnation avoiding itself approximating to the respective work, is this a musical joke of Antonio Salieri, is this the works of giants as J.S. Bach's Passions. Beside the musical stylistic elements, a special attention during the rehearsals is given to the linguistic side. Conductor and choir feel particularly committed to the conception of the music as "sound speech".
Its name recalls that the HMC puts a special emphasis on the choral music. Even if he does not lock beyond that for the religious, he corresponds thereby not only to the desires from the own lines, but also those its listener. Special care is dedicated to the program conception. Topic tables of concerts lead over and over again to surprising confrontations of well-known and new ones. That applies also to concert concepts, which extend over a longer period: for example the presentation of different versions of the Johannes-Passion (from Lechner through Heinrich Schütz and J.S. Bach to Pärt), of choral compositions from all epochs of music history, works about "Music in Nature - Nature in Music" or "Evening - Night". From some programs with rare musical pieces in demand CD productions, like the recent issue of "Goethes Faust in der Musik".
The musical curiosity and unorthodox programmes of the HMC, interested not only the ready-to-learn listener circle in Heidelberg, but also led to guest appearances in other cities in their homeland and abroad, to participation in Choir Festival as Cuenca or Turin, to partnership exchange with choirs from Barcelona and Miskolc, as well as tours to Austria and Iceland. |
