"This spirit is passed on"

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Cornelius Trantow on the art of choral conducting and the voice as a mediator of the soul

Prof. Cornelius Trantow and his chamber choir from the Hamburg University of Music and Drama will remember May 12, 2018 for a very long time. A week earlier, around 5,000 singers from 116 choir formations had gathered in Freiburg im Breisgau to compete in the largest German competition for amateur choirs, which is organized by the German Music Council every four years. When the HfMT Chamber Choir heard the results of the competition shortly before midday on May 12, the enthusiasm of the Hamburgers could hardly be surpassed: With the highest score awarded in the competition, the HfMT Chamber Choir was named the winner of the "Mixed Choirs" category.

"In this competition, we all surpassed ourselves and had both the desire and the will to push our own boundaries," says Cornelius Trantow, who has been a professor of choral conducting at the HfMT since 1999. With the chamber choir founded by HfMT students in the winter semester of 2013, he took part in the "Choralle" regional choir competition in Hamburg last year with outstanding success, earning him a ticket to the 2018 German Choir Competition in Freiburg. "Winning first prize in such an important competition is a great feeling. But what is even more important is that this success has a lasting effect, we are vocally and expressively better than before. And I am convinced that this higher level, this new spirit, will also be passed on to the future members of our choir, like a perpetuum mobile. In four years' time, none of the current students will still be part of the university choir in Freiburg."

The choir members have qualified for the choir by audition. In addition to the opportunity to develop choral music at a high level, the choir also serves as a training ensemble for students who still want to acquire the necessary skills. Intensive work is carried out on voice training, stylistics and ensemble singing techniques. In addition, the choir offers students majoring in choral conducting the opportunity to conduct their own rehearsals and lead parts of concerts.

When asked what makes the difference between conducting an orchestra and a choir, Cornelius Trantow can look back on his many years of experience as a choir conductor and participant in numerous musical ensembles. "A conductor can create a whole palette of possible timbres thanks to the different orchestral instruments. I can use homogeneity and text-relatedness as a means of expression. The human voice has a dual function: on the one hand, like every instrument, it is a sound generator, but at the same time it is also a mediator of the soul, both positively and negatively. If you're in a bad way, you can hear it, it can't be covered up by routine or anything else."
When it comes to choosing the repertoire, the chamber choir is quite democratic. "Anyone who wants to can make suggestions. We also have a choir council made up of around half a dozen students, which deals with both organizational matters and artistic questions."

The selection of pieces includes a cappella works from all eras. When asked about his personal "favorite era" in choral literature, Cornelius Trantow doesn't need to think for long. "That's definitely contemporary music. It often has the reputation of being too unwieldy or avant-garde, music for musicians, not for the audience. I see it differently. When we were the last choir to perform in Freiburg with a contemporary and largely unknown piece by Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, it was celebrated by the other choirs, the jury and the audience. The chairman of the jury even asked me to send him the sheet music."
Whether baroque, romantic, classical or contemporary: anyone who wants to experience the HfMT Chamber Choir live doesn't have to wait four years. "Next February, at the end of the semester, we will perform the St. John Passion together with the university orchestra. This collaboration takes place every three semesters and I'm really looking forward to it."