NDR Vokalensemble / Klaas Stok

75 Years of NDR Vokalensemble

The NDR Vokalensemble marks its 75th anniversary with a programme celebrating the breath and the art of singing. The Latin word »spiro«, for example, means »to breathe, to whisper, to be alive«. The Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi constructs his work out of the silence of the breath. In contrast, in Eric Whitacre’s 2001 composition »Leonardo dreams of his flying machine«, the mischievous winds get Leonardo da Vinci yearning to fly. Whitacre used the polyphonic Renaissance music of da Vinci’s time as a point of reference. Dieter Schnebel’s Bach arrangement »Contrapunctus I« is also a contemporary look back towards the past, and is an established classic of the contemporary choir music repertoire.