Netherlands Radio Choir

Chief conductor: Celso Antunes

For more than sixty years, the Netherlands Radio Choir has been synonymous with top-level music performed with passion. The largest professional choir in the Netherlands with 74 vocalists, its repertoire ranges from a cappella Renaissance works to contemporary music.

Conductors

The Netherlands Radio Choir has worked with guest conductors such as Marcus Creed, Peter Dijkstra, Stefan Parkman and Kaspars Putnins, with early music specialists such as Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe and Ton Koopman and in the extensive choral-symphonic repertoire with names such as Jaap van Zweden, Markus Stenz, Reinbert de Leeuw, John Adams, Sir Simon Rattle and Mariss Jansons. Brazilian conductor Celso Antunes has been chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir since the 2008-2009 season.

Versatile

The 2009-2010 season displays the versatility of the Netherlands Radio Choir in a broad repertoire, ranging from Michael Tippett’s A Child of our Time, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with Jaap van Zweden and Rachmaninov’s Kolokola with Hannu Lintu to the premiere of the prologue from the opera Wake by Klaas de Vries and the world premiere of the revised version of Tristan Murail’s Les sept paroles du Christ en croix. For choir a cappella there is work by Ton de Leeuw and Alphons Diepenbrock, conducted by chief conductor Celso Antunes. Naturally, the choir once again takes centre stage in great operas, including Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, Catalani’s La Wally and the rarely heard Donizetti opera Caterina Cornaro.

In various smaller groups, the choir will also perform a special programme of work by composers such as Schütz, Cavalli, Purcell, Sandström and Nystedt, conducted by Jos van Veldhoven, and Haydn’s Missa Cellensis, conducted by Frans Brüggen. The English version of two oratorios will be performed: Haydn’s The Creation with Philippe Herreweghe and Mendelssohn’s St. Paul, where the choir will work for the first time with the Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki.

Partners

The most important partners of the Netherlands Radio Choir are the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. Almost all concerts are part of two series of the public broadcasting system – the Vredenburg Friday and the Concertgebouw’s Saturday Matinee series – and can be heard live on Radio 4. The Netherlands Radio Choir has also worked for years with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In this season they will give joint performances of Mahler’s second and third symphonies, conducted by Mariss Jansons, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under Bernard Labadie. A new partner is the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; together, they will stage the fully revised version of Tristan Murail’s Les sept paroles in the IRCAM in Paris.

CDs

The Netherlands Radio Choir has recorded CDs on labels such as QuattroLive, which is the CD label of Radio 4, the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Centre, Radio Netherlands Worldwide and Dutch public broadcasters NPS, AVRO and TROS. The choir can be heard on this label in recordings of Rihm’s Memoria, conducted by Jaap van Zweden, The Music Makers by Elgar and Das klagende Lied by Mahler. RCO-live, the label of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, has released recordings such as Poulenc’s Gloria, conducted by Mariss Jansons and Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes ‘Faust’, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. For the BIS label, the choir is currently recording works by James MacMillan. Sun-Dogs and Visitatio Sepulchri, conducted by Celso Antunes and by the composer himself, will be released in the course of the 2009-2010 season.

Training a new generation

The Netherlands Radio Choir considers training a new generation of choral directors and ensemble singers to be one of its responsibilities. It is one of the joint founders of the Eric Ericson Master Class for young choral conductors, established in 2001, which will be held for the sixth time in June 2011. Thanks to this master class, a large number of young conductors have found their way in the professional choral world. Young ensemble singers can be placed as trainees in combination with an intensive supervisory process.
[Translation: Carol Stennes / Muse Translations]

Watch here an introduction to the choir.

Watch some short interviews with choir members and fragments of rehearsals and concerts below.

Welcome to the Netherlands Radio Choir