Rostocker Motettenchor

Rostocker Motettenchor

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Rostocker Motettenchor had already became well known for its performances in famous churches and concert halls in East Germany. The choir was established by Hartwich Eschenburg in 1964 and was the only church choir in East Germany allowed by the government to make gramophone recordings. These included the Bach motets and a record entitled ‘Abendstille’. Foreign concert tours were for a long time forbidden. Not until 1988 did the choir tour Poland, followed in 1989 (shortly before the Wall fell) by Schleswig-Holstein. Nowadays, with a wide repertoire of a cappella works and oratorios from classical to contemporary, the Rostocker Motettenchor has given numerous concerts throughout Germany (including the final concert during the Bach Academy in Stuttgart) and has appeared in Luxembourg, Denmark, Holland and the Czech Republic.

A highlight in the choir’s diary was a visit to the Oregon Bach Festival (USA) in 1995 for an international production of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. In 2003 the choir was directed by its present conductor Markus Langer in the final concert of the Festspiele ‘Musiksommer Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’ with the celebrated Hilliard Ensemble; it reappeared there two years later in a programme of monumental works by Heinrich Schütz with the Hilliard Ensemble and Barocco locco.