Knabenchor der Chorakademie Dortmund

The Chorakademie Dortmund (Dortmund choir academy) is committed towards supporting high-profile choir and solo singing with fun and joy, yet touching a professional level. The boys that sing in the Knabenchor der Chorakademie Dortmund (boys’ choir of the Chorakademie Dortmund) stay in a home environment, which is an important counterpart to the demands in school and the extensive singing. The singers typically start their musical training in the first year of school. Before the boys join the concert choir, they pass through preparation choirs, where they are introduced to the challenges of singing technique in a playful and appropriate way. Regular solo coaching complements the choir lessons as a key element of training and allows for every boy to receive thorough and profound, custom-tailored vocal training at a very early stage. This is the educational and musical approach of Jost Salm, who has been the choir’s director since 2006 and has led the choir to a professional presence and impressive sound. The boys frequently perform in several theatre productions and concerts as a choir and as soloists. The choir’s regular repertoire includes the “Three Boys” from Mozart’s Magic Flute as well as various other boys’ parts from the opera and concert literature. Meanwhile, the world-renowned opera and concert houses in Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Hamburg have also started to invite the choir boys’ from Dortmund; famous conductors, including Kent Nagano, Thomas Hengelbrock and Ivan Fischer have come to appreciate the sound, versatility and precision of the choir and its soloists. Tizian Geyer and Sven Wagner are two outstanding singers of their class in the Knabenchor der Chorakademie Dortmund (boys’ choir of the Dortmund choir academy). Together, they have taken the stage in several productions of the Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; among them performances at De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatstheater Kassel and the International Festival of Aix en Provence. Tizian Geyer has sung the part of “Miles” in the opera The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten at the Opera in Cologne and the Elias boy in a scenic version at the Dortmund Opera and has performed as a soloist at the International Festival of Boys’ Choirs in Poznan. The alto Sven Wagner has sung as a soloist in Thomas Hengelbrock’s acclaimed Parsifal production at the Teatro Real Madrid, among other commitments. He has also sung the alto parts in pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Heinrich Schütz and Marc-Antoine Charpentier at the International Klangvokal Festival.