Dresdner Kreuzchor
Biography Dresdner Kreuzchor
The Dresden Kreuzchor
is one of the world’s oldest and most famous boys’ choirs. Its most important task 800 years later is still the musical accompaniment of the vespers and services at Dresden’s Kreuzkirche. Not only on religious holidays but also throughout the whole church year, the Kreuzchor accompanies half of all liturgical services in the famous church at the old market.
The impressive architecture of the Kreuzkirche is an added attraction for the 3000 spectators of its choir concerts. As the city’s oldest and critically acclaimed cultural institution, the Dresden Kreuzchor has marked Dresden’s musical life in a very special way and spreads the city’s reputation as a cultural metropolis throughout the world as one of its most prominent ambassadors.
Several times a year, the Dresden Kreuzchor goes on national and international concert tours, beyond German and European borders to Israel, Canada, Japan, South America and the USA. More-over, it performs at international music festivals as well as countless radio and television recordings. A very wide repertoire ranging from early Baroque to world premieres of contemporary music has enabled it to make more than 800 recordings in the last 80 years for prestigious record labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Teldec, Capriccio and Berlin Classics. There is a constant cooperation with famous orchestras such as the Dresden Philharmonic and the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. Renowned opera houses regularly employ choir soloists for solo parts such as the three boys in the Magic Flute.
The Kreuzchor singers, called “Kruzianer”, still graduate at the Kreuzschule; about half of them live in the adjacent boarding school. Next to their normal classes, the 130 singers aged nine to eighteen have weekly singing and instrumental lessons. Their daily rehearsals and the specific sound of the choir are the basis of the success and the fame of the Dresden Kreuzchor.
