“The Rundfunkchor has never been more of a trendsetter than it is right now,” wrote the Berliner Morgenpost in May 2005. That in a nutshell is the goal of Hans-Hermann Rehberg: never standing still, always in motion, feelers extended on all sides, taking the pulse of the time, seeking answers to present-day needs, building bridges, networking and creating interfaces between different social groups, injecting specifically choral ideas into the artistic orbit, getting involved, pointing the way, making a mark on Berlin’s profile, internationally as well as locally – those are the passions that drive the chorus’s 51-year-old director. A professional chorus must be avant garde, Rehberg insists. It must define the standards of quality of today and set the trends of tomorrow. The Rundfunkchor should, from its leading position, support the continual revitalization of the art and image of ensemble singing in the 21st century. For the broadest national and international public, it should be a synonym for excellence, vitality, openness, curiosity and innovation and become an indispensable fixture in supporting the quality of life.
Internationalism
Hans-Hermann Rehberg was born in 1956 in the Altmark (Saxony-Anhalt). Following his vocal studies he became an ensemble member of Leipzig’s Musical Comedy and in 1982 was engaged by Rundfunkchor Berlin. The baritone was a singer in the choir during the decisive years under conductor Dietrich Knothe and later received much encouragement from Uwe Gronostay.
At that time the Rundfunkchor was undergoing a transition from an ensemble chiefly active in the studio to an internationally renowned concert choir with broadcasting obligations. Rehberg played a major role in changing the chorus’s profile.
After the fall of the Wall, the ensemble quickly established a position in the international marketplace. Together with Robin Gritton, Rehberg developed international contacts, organized tours to, among other destinations, Australia and the US, and cemented existing partnerships with leading conductors, orchestras, festivals and recording companies. All these institutions and connections help to ensure that Rundfunkchor Berlin maintains its worldwide renown.
Sing-Along Concerts
During the 1990s in Berlin, Rehberg created a subscription series and, together with Marion Küster from Rostock’s Hochschule für Musik und Theater, developed new forms of musical edification. Thanks to Simon Halsey’s charismatic personality, the Sing-Along Concerts have achieved particular fame internationally. At the invitation of the Rundfunkchor, around 1300 singers from all over Europe flock to the Berlin Philharmonie every year. More specific target groups (schoolchildren, management from business and society) are addressed by the Liederbörse and the LeaderChor
The Rundfunkchor in public life
Of special importance to Rehberg is the Rundfunkchor’s prominent involvement in all areas of public life. He sang at the reopening of Berlin’s renovated Rykestrasse Synagogue and at the rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden, has participated in the Berlin mayor’s Hoffest in the “Red Rathaus”, as well as in Weimar during its year as European Cultural Capital, in Berlin at the opening concerts for Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum and Peter Eisenman’s Holocaust Memorial (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), and in New York at the memorial concert for victims of 9/11. At the World Symposium on Choral Music he represented Rundfunkchor Berlin as Germany’s sole professional chorus in Copenhagen.
Broadening the Scope of Choral Music
In his own productions, Rehberg attempts above all to further the development of choral music’s profile, and place its performance practice and well-trodden reception routine to the test. Along with regular commissions from composers such as Rihm, Kagel, Globokar, Qu, Pitts, Jost, Turnage, Harvey, Macmillan and Dean, he is particularly interested in collaborations with related art forms. For the Rundfunkchor’s 75th anniversary, he invited visual artists from every discipline to take part in an international competition involving orchestral colour and the structural singularity of choral sonority.
The experimental series Broadening the Scope of Choral Music, launched by Rehberg in 2005, enjoys international recognition and is invited to several German festivals as well as to Denmark, Russia and Spain. Its objective is to break free of the boundaries imposed by a concert hall and the static concert ritual, and to prepare performances of demanding a cappella choral literature in dialogue with other art forms, so that the symphonically coloured sonorities of choral music and its multiple levels of content can be experienced by a broad public. The “Broadening” series is enlarged each year with a new instalment. Lars Scheibner’s danced version of Rodion Shchedrin’s Sealed Angel in 2005 was followed in 2006 by Christian Jost’s choral opera Angst in the staging by Gottfried Pilz, and in 2007 by Sir John Tavener’s seven-hour vigil The Veil of the Temple in an installation by Rogier Hardeman in Berlin’s modern art museum, Hamburger Bahnhof, featuring four additional Berlin choruses. In 2008, Hans-Werner Kroesinger will make use of the resources of documentary theatre to reveal the abundant significance, drama and topicality of Ernst Pepping’s Passionsbericht des Matthäus, a little-known masterwork from immediate postwar Berlin. And to provide a platform to display in all their individuality the many different faces that go to make up a world-class ensemble like the Rundfunkchor, Rehberg has initiated the choir’s own chamber-music series, KammermusikPodium
Teamwork
Hans-Hermann Rehberg is a passionate team player. Ensemble spirit and cooperation are crucial to him. As a trained singer he feels himself closely connected, at eye level, with the singers in the Rundfunkchor. He has surrounded himself with an experienced, creative staff and set in motion the active support of a dedicated Circle of Friends.
