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The Salzburger Bachchor (Salzburg Bach Choir, Bachchor Salzburg) was founded in 1983 and soon came to prominence as one of Austria’s leading vocal ensembles. During the last ten years it has additionally acquired an international reputation. Since 2003 its Artistic Director has been Alois Glaßner. The choir appears regularly at the Salzburg Festival, where it has been acclaimed at numerous concerts as well as in opera productions.
The Salzburg Bach Choir has established itself as an integral part of Austrian musical life. Thanks to its flexible resources and stylistic versatility the Salzburg Bach Choir is able to explore a wide-ranging repertoire extending from the vocal polyphony of the Renaissance to the great oratorios of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods and to 20th-century works. Its repertoire embraces, above all, the great choral works of the Baroque and Classical eras: by J.S. Bach (St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), St. John Passion (BWV 245), B-minor Mass (BWV 232), Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248)) and George Frideric Handel (Messiah, Judas Maccabaeus, Alexander’s Feast, Israel in Egypt), J. Haydn (The Creation, The Seven Last Words of Christ, the Nelson and Theresien Masses), and W.A. Mozart (C-minor Mass, K. 427, and Coronation Mass), as well as compositions of the Romantic era and the 20th century, and a capella works. A vital component of the chorus’s activity is its dedication to the works of Salzburg composers such as Johann Michael Haydn and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. But the choir has also been acclaimed for its performances of contemporary music, including the world premieres of works by Georg Friedrich Haas and Mauricio Sotelo.
In addition to its focus on W.A. Mozart, the Salzburg Bach Choir has also specialized in recent years in a cappella works and organizes a series of concerts each autumn to explore this particular repertoire. Here, too, the choir’s range extends over five centuries, and its performances of Thomas Tallis’s forty-part motet Spem in alium in St Peter’s Church in Salzburg in the summer have received just as much acclaim as its readings of works by György Ligeti and Beat Furrer at the Dialogues Festival organized by the International Mozarteum Foundation.
The Salzburg Bach Choir appears in concerts of the Salzburg Bach Society, Salzbug International Mozart Week, and Salzburg Jazz Festival (with the Dave Brubeck Quartet). In recent years they have developed a close relationship with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra in concerts at the Salzburg Festival, as well as with the Wiener Philharmoniker. Another highpoint of the chorus's history was its participation in W.A. Mozart’s Idomeneo in 2000, conducted by Michael Gielen, in the production by Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann at the Salzburg Festival. Other highlights have included George Frideric Handel's Theodora and the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel in 2016. Its most recent opera engagements at the Salzburg Mozart Week Festival have been Lucio Silla and Orfeo ed Euridice.
Guest appearances have taken the ensemble to the Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Handel Festivals in Halle and Göttingen, Baden-Baden Whitsun Festival, Innsbruck Early Music Festival, Köthener Bach Festtage, Enescu Festival in Bucharest and Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic as well as to France, Italy, Greece, Spain and Switzerland.
The Salzburg Bach Choir has appeared with many outstanding conductors and with orchestras of the eminence of the Wiener Philharmoniker, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. The choir has worked closely over many years with Ivor Bolton, Adam Fischer, Michael Gielen, Leopold Hager, Sir Charles Mackerras, Ingo Metzmacher, Marc Minkowski, and Andrés Orozco-Estrada.
The Salzburg Bach Choir has numerous CD recordings to its credit, including works of H.I.F. Biber and J.M. Haydn. |
