Like many choirs in Germany, the Stuttgarter Oratorienchor e.V. has been hit hard in its annual planning by the measures taken against the pandemic.
Rescheduled or Cancelled:
- The choir’s regular rehearsals (regulation by the federal state and school closures for “external users”) since mid-March.
- The traditional Palm Sunday concert in April 2020 (A. Pärt “Stabat Mater” and Mozart’s “Requiem” in the special “Levin version”).
- A one-week concert tour to Bolzano/Bressanone/Caltern/Rovereto and Trento, IT at the invitation of the “Haydn Orchestra Bolzano” in June 2020 with the unpublished oratorio “Durchzug durchs Rote Meer” and “Te Deum” by J. N. Hummel and another concert with A. Dvořák’s “D Major Mass”.
- The traditional summer concert in Stuttgart’s St. Eberhard’s Church in July 2020 with the Haydn Orchestra Bolzano and the Hummel programme of the previous concert tour.
- Planned: concert tour to Brno, CZ (as part of the 30th anniversary of the Stuttgart-Brno city partnership) in October 2020.
- The performance of Brahms’ “German Requiem” in an organ version in the Regiswindiskirche (Lauffen am Neckar, DE) in November 2020.
The Corona Crisis 2020 – difficult conditions for choirs
Together with members of the choir, conductor Enrico Trummer initiated “digital” and “physical” activities during this time that continued the choral work. During the time when strict contact restrictions had to be observed, the rehearsal work for the summer programme could only take place at home with the help of self-produced files (83!). Of course, there was no substitute for a communal musical experience, despite the many opportunities to practise.
Without the generous offer of a choir member to make her large garden available for singing, the choir’s dry spell would probably have lasted until the autumn. When the new Corona ordinance finally allowed private meetings of up to 20 people from June onwards, the choir was carefully informed about the risk of contagion from aerosols in the open air. Only then an invitation was sent to all choir members to “sing outdoors”. For this purpose, our musical director again sang and recorded an unbelievably high number of music files. In the garden of one of our choir members, not only the singers were happy about the beautiful sound of vocal music…
