Amarcord
Founded in 1992 by erstwhile members of St. Thomas’s Boys Choir in Leipzig, amarcord has since become one of the world’s leading vocal ensembles. amarcord’s hallmarks include a unique tone, breathtaking homogeneity, musical authenticity, and a good dose of charm and humor. amarcord performs a vast and highly diverse repertoire of music, from medieval plainsong to madrigals and Renaissance Masses, to compositions and cycles of works of the European Romantic period and the 20th century, arrangements of a cappella folksongs collected from all over the world, all the way to soul and jazz charts.

Alongside the Gewandhaus Orchestra and St. Thomas’s Boys Choir, amarcord is now one of the leading representatives of Leipzig’s music scene in Germany and abroad. amarcord regularly appears at important music festivals. Numerous concert tours have taken the singers to more than 50 countries and nearly every corner of the globe. In cooperation with the Goethe Institute, the ensemble has made guest appearances in Australia, Southeast Asia, the Near East, Russia and Central America.

Founded by amarcord in 1997 under the artistic direction of the group, the International Festival of Vocal Music “a cappella” (www.a-cappella-festival.de) has established itself as one of the most important festivals of its kind. Held in Leipzig in spring each year, premier vocal formations such as The Real Group, The King’s Singers or Take 6 can be heard at the festival.

Numerous CD recordings document impressively the many facets of amarcord’s repertoire and won many important prizes. In 2014 amarcord won its sixth Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award, also called the “a cappella Oscar,” for the CD Folks & Tales. The recording Zu S Thomas, containing two Gregorian Masses from the Thomas Gradual of St. Thomas Church, was awarded the International Classical Music Award (ICMA), the most important European Record Critics’ Prize, in 2013. One year earlier the singers received the prestigious ECHO-Klassik Award in the category for “Ensemble of the year/vocal” for the recording Das Lieben bringt groß’ Freud!.

The horn quartet “german hornsound”
was founded in 2009 by four former students of Professor Christian Lapert’s horn class at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart. All four horn players currently hold positions in professional orchestras: the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra in Reutlingen, the State Opera in Hanover, the Berlin Concert House Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.

The ensemble’s repertoire comprises all epochs of music history including both original works and arrangements. german hornsound’s own arrangements also offer more programme variety than the established horn quartet repertoire.

Since its inception, german hornsound has repeatedly been invited to play at festivals such as the “Festival Mitte Europa”, the festival summer at Schloss Seehof and the “Ebracher Musiksommer”. For 2013, german hornsound has developed their own project in cooperation with the well-known South Tyrolean author, Herbert Rosendorfer, and the Berlin dramaturg, Karl-Dietrich Gräwe, to honour the anniversaries of both Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. The quartet will perform this opera fragment in three acts, called “Siegfried and Violetta”, at leading festivals such as the “Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival”, the “Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern”, the “Oberstdorfer Musiksommer”, the “Vielklang-Sommer Tübingen”, as well as the “Festival zwischen Inn und Salzach”. Further performances will take place in Nuremberg, Chur and Davos.

In the summer of 2013, german hornsound will also premiere (in cooperation with the Bavarian broadcaster “Bayerischer Rundfunk”) a commissioned composition of the Norwegian composer Trygve Madsen for four horns and orchestra with the Bavarian Youth Orchestra.