Over het album

The Netherlands Chamber Choir was founded in 1937. Over the years composers such as Francis Poulenc, Hendrik Andriessen, Henk Badings and Rudolf Escher wrote works for the ensemble. In 1965 the Dutch government decided to cover the payment of the singers. This enabled the Netherlands Chamber Choir to occupy a unique place among the professional choirs in Europe without any firm bond to an opera house or a broadcasting corporation.

The Netherlands Chamber Choir applies itself first of all to the repertory for a cappella chorus. It also collaborates regularly with various ensembles like the Schonberg Ensemble, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, The repertory of the Netherlands Chamber Choir spans the whole of Western music, ranging from the early Middle Ages to contemporary music.

Uwe Gronostay was born in Hildesheim, Germany in 1939 and studied church music in Hannover, Bremen and Siena. From 1963 onwards, Gronostay worked as cantor and organist in Bremen, where he founded the Nord-deutscbe Figuralchor in 1966. In 1972, he was appointed conductor of the Berlin RIAS-Kammerchor. ln 1982, he became conductor of the Philharmonische Chor Berlin, and has remained its artistic leader till 2002. Many composers, such as Mauricio Kagel, Milko Kelemen, Carl Orff, Krzystof Penderecki, Aribert Reimann and Heinz Werner Zimmermann wrote works of which the first performance was entrusted to Uwe Gronostay. Herbert von Karajan, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly and Gerd Albrecht have regularly appealed to him when practising big works with chorus. In 1987 Uwe Gronostay vacated his post as principal conductor of the RIAS-Kammerchor in order to apply himself to his many guest conductorships.