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The Hamburger Knabenchor (Hamburg Boychoir) was founded in 1960 under the auspices of the North German Radio. Since 1967, it has been associated with St. Nikolai Church, one of the four main churches in Hamburg. Since assuming the directorship of the chorus in 1991, Rosemarie Pritzkat has established a boychoir school in which over one hundred singers now participate.
In addition to an extensive a cappella repertoire, the Knabenchor regularly peforms such major choral works as Haydn's Creation, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, and J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) and St. John Passion (BWV 245). The Knabenchor has participated in performances of Hans Werner Henze's We come to the river and Leonard Bernstein's Mass at the Hamburg State Opera under the direction of Ingo Metzmacher as well as Oscar Straus's Der tapfere Soldat (The Chocolate Soldier) at the Allee Theater In Hamburg. Together with boy singers from Coventry, England, the Knabenchor sang Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at the Usedom Music Festivel under the direction of Mstislav Rostropovich. The premiere of Litanei, a work written for the Knabenchor by the Hamburg composer, Dieter Einfeldt, took place in St. Nicholas Church in 2002.
The Knabenchor has made concert tours of Iceland, England, Russia, Luxemburg, Belgium, the USA, the Czech Republic, and China. It has won numerous prizes, and, most recently, was judged Best Foreign Choir at the 2002 International Children's and Young People's Choral Competition in Shanghai. |
