The Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor appears at major concerts and in opera productions at the Salzburg Festival and also at the Landestheater, offering children and adolescents a thorough, all-round training in singing and music, in addition to giving them a first-hand impression of professional work in the theatre. The Choir was formed following a merger between the Salzburg Festival Children’s Choir and the Salzburg Landestheater Children’s Choir and celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2018. The ensemble is currently directed by Wolfgang Götz. Regina Sgier is responsible for developing and training the choristers’ voices. Depending on their age, the younger children are introduced to singing through various pre-choir groups. At present, the Choir numbers around 200 young Austrian and German singers aged between six and 16, from which smaller groups are formed for individual projects.

In addition to its own series of concerts in the city, the Salzburg Festival and Theatre Children’s Choir has performed at the Salzburg Festival under such eminent conductors as Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bertrand de Billy, Zubin Mehta and Franz Welser-Möst. The Choir has appeared with orchestras such as the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonics, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 the Choir took part in a series of demanding choral works, including Mahler’s Third and Eighth Symphonies under Gustavo Dudamel, Britten’s War Requiem under Antonio Pappano and Walter Braunfels’s Jeanne d’Arc under Manfred Honeck, followed in 2014 by Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine under John Eliot Gardiner. In 2016 the Choir and Wolfgang Götz presented a programme within the Salzburg 20.16 series, with works by Salzburg composers of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Choir has performed in opera productions at the Salzburg Festival including Die Frau ohne Schatten, Macbeth, Carmen, La Bohème, Das Labyrinth: Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil, Der Rosenkavalier, Wozzeck, Pique Dame and Œdipe. They have also appeared to great acclaim at the Salzburg Landestheater, in 2014 in their own production, Die Kinder des Monsieur Mathieu. In 2018 they performed in Tosca at the Salzburg Easter Festival.

The Choir has made guest appearances in venues including the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona and has additionally participated in various television and film productions, including Weihnachten mit Rolando Villazón (Servus TV, 2014) and Die Trapp-Familie: Ein Leben für die Musik (Constantin Film, 2015).

Current as of August 2021

Mike Vogl