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Helmuth Rilling

Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling 2013 (cropped).jpg
Rilling in 2013
Born (1933-05-29) 29 May 1933 (age 83)
Stuttgart, Germany
Occupation
  • Choral conductor
  • Academic teacher
Organization
Awards Herbert von Karajan Music Prize

Helmuth Rilling (born 29 May 1933 in Stuttgart) is a German choral conductor and an academic teacher. He is the founder of the Gächinger Kantorei (1954), the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (1965), the Oregon Bach Festival (1970), the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (1981) and other Bach Academies worldwide, as well as the "Festival Ensemble Stuttgart" (2001) and the "Junges Stuttgarter Bach Ensemble" (2011). He taught choral conducting at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule from 1965 to 1989 and led the Frankfurter Kantorei from 1969 to 1982.

Rilling was born into a musical family. He received his early training at the Protestant Seminaries in Württemberg. From 1952 to 1955 he studied organ, composition, and choral conducting at the Stuttgart College of Music. He completed his studies with Fernando Germani in Rome and at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.

While still a student in 1954, he founded his first choir, the Gächinger Kantorei. Starting in 1957, he was organist and choirmaster at the Stuttgart Gedächtniskirche, conducting the choir Figuralchor der Gedächtniskirche Stuttgart. From 1963 to 1966, and taught organ and choral at the Spandauer Kirchenmusikschule, conducting the Spandauer Kantorei (Spandau chorale).

In 1967 he studied with Leonard Bernstein in New York and in the same year was appointed professor of choral conducting at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, a post which he held until 1985. In 1969, he took over as conductor of the Frankfurter Kantorei (Frankfurt Choir). Since 1965 he has conducted the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, which often performs with the Gächinger Kantorei. He has toured widely with both ensembles.


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