From Old to New - 1000 Years of the Mass

Elbcanto was founded by students at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in 2006. The goal of their work together is to have the chance of grappling intensively with musical materials. In this manner, elbcanto combines the music’s authentic interpretation with each singer’s individual understanding of a piece. The ensemble considers a range of (even conflicting) performance options in its rehearsals. The understanding of the music thereby arises from within the ensemble itself and is not dictated from the outside. Consequently, elbcanto has from the very beginning worked without a conductor.

Elbcanto constructs its concert programmes in such a fashion that the individual pieces are subordinated to a common idea, or that the pieces’ ordering generates a larger meaning. The ensemble has worked intensively on a diverse spectrum of styles and topics such as the Romantic era, the multifaceted settings of the Psalms, or the changing tradition of musical settings for the Mass. In 2009, elbcanto won the Landeschorwettbewerb Hamburg, and was awarded a special prize for the best performance of a folk song at the Deutscher Chorwettbewerb in 2010.