Kieler Knabenchor

The Kieler Knabenchor was founded in 1968 by Guntram Altnöder and is conducted by his successor, Hans-Christian Henkel since 1998. The concert choir, consisting of boy's and men's voices, comprises 50 to 60 singers coming from different schools in and around Kiel, though many are students at the Ernst-Barlach-Gymnasium, where a program with special emphasis on music education is offered. A fixed venue for concerts since 1975 is Kiel's main church St. Nikolai, where the Knabenchor vocally supports services every few months. Concert tours have led the choir through Germany and many other European countries, to Israel, to the former Soviet Union and to the U.S. Highlights of previous years are, for example, a performance in St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, Bach's Christmas Oratory in Tallinn's philharmonic concert hall "Estonia", a trip to Moscow with concerts in the Tchaikovsky and the Rachmaninoff concert hall. Important international music festivals, such as the Israel Festival and the AmericaFest Festival 2000 have featured the choir. In the years 1990, 1999 and 2001, the Kieler Knabenchor participated in concerts of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The choir's repertoire stretches from Gregorian chant to renaissance and baroque polyphony to Classical and Romantic pieces and encompasses moderate modernist songs as well.