STUTTGARTER HYMNUS-CHORKNABEN

Last year, the Stuttgarter Hymnus-Chorknaben celebrated their 125th anniversary. Founded in 1900, Hymnus is the oldest boys’ choir in southwestern Germany and has been dedicated to sacred vocal music in all its facets ever since. Despite its long tradition, the ensemble has not gathered dust; on the contrary, the young and forward-looking singers know how to captivate their audiences. As they will do in the Haigerloch Castle Church, whose majestic rocky setting provides a fitting backdrop for the uplifting programme »Laudate!« – a concert with songs of praise and gratitude. Alongside choral pieces by the Baroque masters of sacred music, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, as well as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s setting of the prayer, »Verleih uns Frieden« (Grant us Peace), the program includes works by contemporary composers, among them Fredrik Sixten’s »Alleluia« and the »Laudate« by Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt, who himself once sang as a soprano soloist in a boys’ choir. In this way, the Stuttgarter Hymnus-Chorknaben span the programme over three centuries of sacred vocal music, and above all, the message resonates: »Jesus remains my joy«.