Wiener Singverein

The Vienna Singverein is the concert choir of the Vienna Musikverein with around 230 members. It is regularly requested by top orchestras and conductors for large and varied projects.

The choir was founded in its present form in 1858. The first choir master was Johann von Herbeck until his transfer to the Vienna Court Opera. The Singverein has been substantially involved in many first performances from Schubert’s musical play Die Verschworenen (The Conspirators), Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem, Anton Bruckner’s Te deum, Gustav Mahler's Symphonie No. 8 and Franz Schmidt’s Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln up to composers of the second post war period, like Gerd Kühr, Christian Muthspiel, Arvo Pärt, Wolfram Wagner and Otto Zykan.

Since its foundation the Singverein has been partner of important conductors, among them Franz Schalk, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Karl Böhm and Leonard Bernstein. From 1947 to 1989 Herbert von Karajan defined the profile of the choir and made it known world wide through recordings, concert film productions on laser disc.

Concert tours took the choir to Australia, Japan and the USA; further concerts among others were in Israel, Athens, Berlin, Budapest, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Pisa, Rome, and Zurich. In 1959 a performance of the Bruckner Te Deum took place in the Vatican, as well as in 1985 a performance of the Mozart Coronation Mass during the High Mass with Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica under Karajan.

The first choir master Herbeck was followed by Johannes Brahms, then from mid-twentieth century Ferdinand Grossmann, Reinhold Schmid and Helmut Froschauer. Since 1991 Johannes Prinz has been the choir master engaged by the Vienna Musikverein.

To celebrate the centenary of the first performance Mahler’s Symphony Nr. 8 (Symphony of a Thousand), in which the Singverein took part in September 1910, the choir, along with the Philharmonic Choir Munich and the Tölzer Boys’ Choir, was invited to the Gasteig Philharmonie to give two performances under the direction of Christian Thielemann in October 2010.

In the year 2011, concerts with works by Olivier Messiaen, Schostakovitsch and Mahler under Ingo Metzmacher, Bruckner’s E minor Mass and choral works by Peter Planyavsky under Johannes Prinz and for the first time under Cornelius Meister and Gustavo Dudamel, works by Janáček and Mahler took place.

In 2017, the Singverein took part in the famous Vienna New Year's Concert for the first time. Wikipedia