Siegfried Strohbach

Siegfried Strohbach
Siegfried Strohbach in 2011
Born	(1929-11-27) 27 November 1929 (age 88) Schirgiswalde
Occupation	Composer Choral conductor Academic teacher
Organization	Musikhochschule Hannover

Siegfried Strohbach (born 27 November 1929 in Schirgiswalde, Lusatia) is a German composer and conductor. He founded and directed choirs and the vocal ensemble Collegium Cantorum and is notable for the composition of choral music. He has retired as a conductor of major theaters of Lower Saxony and as a professor of the Musikhochschule Hannover, but as of 2011 is still active as a composer.

Siegfried Strohbach began having piano lessons at the age of five. From 1939 to 1945, he was a student of the (high school with music as a main course) in Frankfurt with a major in piano. He studied composition with its founder and director Kurt Thomas. From 1946 to 1949 he continued his studies in composition and conducting with Thomas privately, and studied the piano with August Leopolder.

From 1947 to 1949 he worked as a Korrepetitor (coach) at the Oper Frankfurt. In 1949 he moved to Hanover, where he studied singing with Paul Gümmer at the Landesmusikschule. As a choral conductor, he took under his wing several amateur choirs in and around Hanover. During this time he wrote his first successful compositions, including the premiere of his chamber opera Die Wette, and made initial contact with the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. From 1951 to 1953 he was Kapellmeister for plays at the Landestheater (now Staatstheater Hannover). In 1953 he founded the choir "Propsteichor Hannover" and also the "Collegium Cantorum", a semiprofessional ensemble which became known through concerts and broadcasts. He was to direct the group until 1982.

From 1953 to 1966 Strohbach was a music teacher at the gymnasium St. Ursula in Hanover, but continued to work as a freelancer at the theater Landesbühne, which covers performances all over Lower Saxony, from 1951 to 1993. During that time he wrote incidental music for the stage, some 40 pieces. From 1966 he was lecturer in music theory at the Musikhochschule Hannover, where he was appointed professor in 1973, teaching until his retirement in 1994. Parallel to teaching, Strohbach was from 1967 to 1984 Kapellmeister of the Landesbühne and conducted opera and concert at the festival "Musik und Theater in Herrenhausen" in the Baroque Herrenhausen Gardens, including works of Monteverdi, Mozart, and particularly Handel.