Choir

The Philharmonic Choir of the City of Bonn was founded in 1852 as the »Municipal Choral Society« and can look back on an eventful history.

The choir regards its participation in the city’s choral concerts under the direction of Bonn’s General Music Director as its main task. In addition, it frequently participates in the Beethovenfest and regularly presents its own concerts in Bonn and the region.

As a musical ambassador for Bonn, the city of Beethoven, the Philharmonic Choir is often invited to guest concerts and concert recordings in Germany and abroad. At the international Lucerne Festival 2013, the choir successfully debuted with Roméo et Juliette by Hector Berlioz under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen. For the Bonn City Partnership Week 2022 in Oxford, it delighted the audience alongside the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra in the Sheldonian Theatre with the Choral Fantasy and the 9th Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven.

In its many performances, the Philharmonic Choir has worked with renowned conductors such as Christoph von Dohnányi and Markus Stenz as well as top orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Gürzenich Orchestra. Highlights of recent musical work include two outstanding concerts that were successfully performed despite the Corona pandemic: An extremely moving performance of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s oratorio Elijah in the Cologne Philharmonie with top-class soloists, which was highly praised by the press, and the Concerto con Anima, in which Paul Krämer conducted his two choirs, the Philharmonic Choir Bonn and the Kartäuserkantorei Cologne, in a joint project for the first time. An extraordinary and moving concert was the peace concert initiated by General Music Director Dirk Kaftan on the occasion of the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The »Philchor« gladly accepted the invitation to spontaneously participate in this peace concert with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn under the direction of the Russian conductor Anna Skryleva and to set a sign of peace for a peaceful, united Europe with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Paul Krämer has been the artistic director of the Philharmonic Choir Bonn since 2016. He studied conducting with Prof. Marcus Creed and Prof. Peter Dijkstra at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and graduated with top marks. He received further impulses at international master classes and in collaboration with conductors such as Karina Canellakis, François-Xavier Roth, Markus Stenz. In addition to his two choirs, Paul Krämer is a lecturer for ensemble singing at the WDR Choir Academy and takes on guest conductorships with various international radio choirs.