Renner Ensemble Regensburg & Hans Pritschet
Biography Renner Ensemble Regensburg & Hans Pritschet
Renner Ensemble Regensburg
In 1987 the Renner Ensemble Regensburg, named after the Regensburg Cathedral organist and composer Josef Renner Jr. (1868 -1934), was founded by long-time choirmaster Bernd Englbrecht. The majority of the ensemble members received their musical training at the Regensburger Domspatzen music high school.
On this basis, Bernd Englbrecht formed a perfectly coordinated body of sound, which Jörg Genslein was able to continue to lead with great élan from September 2003. Since 2011, Hans Pritschet has been in charge of the ensemble.
The ensemble impresses with its great versatility: the repertoire spans choral works for male voices across the centuries - from the Middle Ages to works of the Renaissance and Romanticism to experimental contemporary vocal avant-garde.
Concert tours have taken the choir to Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Latvia, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, Uruguay and Argentina.
In addition to numerous performances, CD productions and radio and television recordings, the ensemble has also participated successfully in national and international choir competitions: the choir won first prizes at the 3rd German Choir Competition in Stuttgart in 1990, at the BBC International Choir Competition "Let the Peoples Sing" in 1991, at the 1st International Competition for Vocal Ensembles in Korntal-Münchingen in 1992, at the 27th Choir Competition in Tolosa, Spain in 1995, and at the 4th International Choir Competition in Trelew, Argentina in 1999.
In 1996, the Renner Ensemble Regensburg was also the winner of the Ernst-von-Siemens Foundation's sponsorship award. In 2000 the ensemble received the Cultural Promotion Prize of the City of Regensburg and in 2005 the Culture Prize of the District of Upper Palatinate in the choir category.
Concert reviews on the occasion of the male choir's 25th anniversary in 2012 were full of praise with comments such as "fantastic homogeneity of the sound body" and "...the singers know how to declaim perfectly under expert guidance and master all dynamic nuances."
Most recently, the ensemble achieved 3rd place at the International Male Voice Choral Festival in Cornwall, England, in May 2015, building on the success of previous years.
The ensemble received a special honour in 2018. The newly recorded CD "War no More" was awarded the Opus Klassik, the successor to the Echo Klassik, in the category "Choral Recording of the Year".
