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About
Gaechinger Cantorey (Gächingen Chorale) is a world-famous German mixed choir founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1954 in Gächingen (part of St .Johann is close to Reutlingen) and managed by him until 2013, replaced by Hans-Christoph Rademann.
During the first years the Gächinger Kantorei performed a cappella works of Buxtehude, Schütz, Pachelbel, Lasso, Hassler, Bach, Caspar Othmayr and Leonhard Lechner, and music of 20th century composers such as Hugo Distler, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Hessenberg, Willy Burkhard, including premieres of works by Johann Nepomuk David, Evangelienmotetten (motets on the Gospel) in 1959 and Psalm 139 in 1961.
Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, conducted by Rilling, completed the first complete recording of Bach's cantatas and oratorios, a project of 15 years in collaboration with the Hänssler Verlag, on 21 March 1985, the composer's 300th birthday. The recording was awarded a Grand Prix du Disque.
The choir premiered works such as the Messa per Rossini (1988), LitanyArvo Pärt (1994), the Requiem of Reconciliation (1995) or Wolfgang Rihm's Deus Passus (Passionsstücke nach Lukas) in 2000 and Creatio in 2009. They explored different repertoire in 2004, in a premiere performance and recording of Mendelsohn's opera Die beiden Neffen.
Gächinger Kantorei have also performed new versions of works, such as Mozart's unfinished Great Mass in C minor completed by Robert D. Levin. In 2009 they performed Bach's Christmas Oratorio in St. Thomas Church, Leipzig where it had been premiered 275 years before.
The choir has performed with notable guest conductors such as Masaaki Suzuki. Krzysztof Penderecki conducted his Credo on the occasion of Rilling's 70th birthday, 29 May 2003, with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, programmed with Bach's setting of these words in the Symbolum Nicenum from his Mass in B minor, Rilling conducting Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart with Sibylla Rubens, Ingeborg Danz and Christian Gerhaher. Sir Roger Norrington chose the choir for his recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with Camilla Nylund, Iris Vermillion, Jonas Kaufmann, Franz-Josef Selig and the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart. Ton Koopman conducted Haydn's The Seasons with soloists Klara Ek, Jörg Dürmüller and Klaus Mertens in 2009.
In 2009 the Gächinger Kantorei sang under Rilling with the New York Philharmonic Handel's in Avery Fisher Hall in New York with soloists Annette Dasch, Daniel Taylor, James Taylor and Shenyang.