Choirs

The specialist group choir for church music is made up of all church music students. Guests from other degree courses are always welcome. The offer to sing along is taken up by all departments, even talented members from the administration are part of the choir.

The choir is directed by Stephan Lutermann.

Sometimes advanced students also lead the choir as part of their final projects (Bachelor and Master). There is a balanced alternation between choral programs and a capella literature, so that a good overview of the repertoire from all styles and epochs can be achieved at the end of the course.

The choir is also characterized as a platform for young composers. New pieces are regularly written for the choir and world premieres are integrated into the semester concerts.

It is not necessary to audition to qualify to sing in the choir. However, there is a so-called voice check for all new members, led in a protected environment by Prof. Annedore Hacker-Jakobi. This ensures that advice is available in the event of questions about vocal pitch or a lack of singing experience.

The HfMT Hamburg Women's Choir was founded in the 2019/2020 winter semester on the initiative of female school music students together with Prof. Annedore Hacker-Jakobi. Students of church music, instrumental pedagogy and students from the University of Hamburg also take part.
The motivation was and is a great interest in dealing with the "female voice" as an ensemble and in demanding and stylistically diverse literature.
The current focus is on new compositions by composers who write especially for this ensemble.

Interested singers can contact the director) at any time and make an appointment for a trial rehearsal. If there is further interest, there is a voice check in private, which helps to clarify the vocal range and can be used for a possible voice consultation.

The HfMT jazz choir has been in existence for over 20 years. Jazz choir singing combines two musical traditions that for a long time had no real points of contact. On the one hand, choral singing in jazz incorporates many elements of the classical choral tradition. On the other hand, the harmonies and rhythms are influenced by jazz. Special highlights for the jazz choir have always been the choir trips, including to Holland, France, Spain or Switzerland, or the performances at major festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the participation in "Mass" by L. Bernstein together with the Philharmonic State Orchestra. Since summer 2015, the jazz choir has been directed by Prof. Ken Norris and Erek Siebel.

The Chamber Choir of the Hamburg University of Music and Drama was founded in the 2013/14 winter semester. The choir members are students at the university and have qualified for the choir by audition. The choir is intended to give experienced singers the opportunity to develop choral music at a high level. On the other hand, it also serves as a training ensemble for students who want to acquire the necessary skills. The choir works intensively 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.

The choir works on a cappella literature from all eras and regularly collaborates with the university orchestra on oratorio projects. It is directed by Prof. Cornelius Trantow, Professor of Choral Conducting at the HfMT since 1999.

In October 2017, the chamber choir won the Hamburg State Choir Competition and qualified to take part in the 10th German Choir Competition in Freiburg. There, in May 2018, the ensemble was awarded the highest mark in the competition as the winner of the "Mixed Choirs" category.

At the "Cork International Choral Festival" in May 2019, the choir was awarded 2nd prize in the international category of the choir competition and also received the special "Lady Dorothy Mayer Memorial Trophy" for the best work of the competition: "Iuppiter" by Michael Ostrzyga.

The vocal ensemble of the Studio for Early Music is made up of students from a wide range of disciplines. What they have in common is an interest in music from the 15th to 17th centuries and the joy of discovering the structures from which later music emerged.
We work on experiencing a polyphonic score, i.e. listening and reacting to each other very well, learning the treatment of language in madrigals and motets and discovering and developing our voices. We do this in different languages: Italian, German, English and sometimes also French or Latin.

We welcome everyone who is interested and enjoys discovering new things (the "old" is very new for many!) and who is prepared to attend rehearsals regularly. We perform in concert once or twice a year, usually in the Spiegelsaal, sometimes also in churches.

Prof. Isolde Kittel-Zerer, the ensemble's director, has many years of experience in working with choirs and  vocal ensembles in the field of "early music".