The Dresdner Kammerchor (Dresden Chamber Choir) is a mixed chamber choir which was founded in 1985 by Hans-Christoph Rademann in Dresden and is still conducted by him. The semiprofessional ensemble of about 40 singers has appeared internationally.
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Hans-Christoph Rademann founded the choir in 1985 while he was still a student at the Musikhochschule Dresden. Most of the singers were fellow students. The choir is still connected to the conservatory, now called Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber", and many members are students or alumni.[1]
It is part of the profile of the Dresdner Kammerchor to perform and record music written for the court of Dresden under Augustus the Strong and his successor Frederick Augustus II, including works by Johann David Heinichen, Johann Adolf Hasse and Jan Dismas Zelenka. The choir has also performed contemporary music and won awards in international competitions for that repertory.[2]
The choir has appeared at festivals such as the Bachwoche Ansbach, Handel Festival Halle, Rheingau Musik Festival and the Handel Festival Göttingen. They have collaborated with conductors such as Paul McCreesh, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Riccardo Chailly, Ádám Fischer, René Jacobs, Helmut Müller-Brühl, Roger Norrington, Herbert Blomstedt, and with ensembles such as Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.[2] In 2010, they recorded Bach's complete Christmas Oratorio with the Gewandhausorchester, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with Martin Lattke as the Evangelist.[3]
The chamber choir celebrated its 25th anniversary on 29 May 2011 with a concert of Mendelssohn's oratorio Paulus in the Kreuzkirche, performed as part of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele and broadcast by the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, with an orchestra formed by members of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Dresden Philharmonic, soloists Anna Prohaska, Lothar Odinius and René Pape, conducted by founder Hans-Christoph Rademann.[4] On 9 November 2011, in a concert in the synagogue of Görlitz in memory of the victims of the 1938 Pogromnacht, the choir performed music composed after 1945 by composers Robert Heppener, Charlotte Seither and Henryk Gorecki on words by Paul Celan.[5]