LAMC Presents: Eric Ericson Chamber Choir

Program Notes

Eric Ericson - born 1918 - is, for the great majority of choir conductors and choir singers throughout the world, the unsurpassed master in the field of choir conducting. His entire career has been devoted to choral music; his work has not only given great acclaim to his own choirs but has significantly contributed to a breakthrough in establishing the status and merit of choral music and singing in choirs as a highly valuable form of music making. Through his dedication to the field of choir and choral music, an extraordinary development of skill in interpretation, voice standards and interest for the medium from contemporary composers has arised, not only in Sweden, but all over the world where he has been concert-touring or givmg master classes. Eric Ericson formed the Stockholm Chamber Choir in 1945 (renamed in 1988 to be called Eric Ericson Chamber Choir). This group has remained his main instrument for developing the art of a cappella singing ever since. Side by side with his work with the Chamber Choir, he has been conductor and artistic director of the Swedish Radio Choir (1951 - 1982) and Orphei Drängar (1951 - 1991). For many years Eric Ericson was a legendary figure as professor in choir conducting at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm. Over the years, his international commitments have become steadily more extensive. Not only has he appeared as guest conductor with the world's major choirs, but in a series of some ten master classes worldwide every year, he is appreciated as a particularly valued and stimulating teacher. Since his retirement from the post as principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 1982, Eric Ericson has been giving numerous master classes over the world. He has also guest-conducted many leading vocal groups, such as the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Groupe Vocal de France, BBC Singers, RIAS Kammerchor, Vienna State Opera Choir. He has also conducted numerous performances of major works with leading orchestras and choirs in Europe, Australia, the USA, japan and Hongkong. He frequently collaborates with conductors like Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Claudio Abbado, james Levine and Riccardo Muti. 1988 Eric Ericson received the Swedish Choral Conductors Prize and in 1991 the Danish Sonning Music Prize. 1995 he also received the Swedish Academy Royal Prize and the Nordic Council Music Prize. In 1997 he received the prestigeous Polar Music Prize. Professor Ericson is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music and the honorary president of the International Federation for Choral Music. The Eric Ericson Chamber Choir was founded in 1945 by Eric Ericson, and has ever since held a central position in the Swedish and international music scene. The particular aim of the choir and its leader to continually search out new music and new fields of work, has today resulted in a very wide repertoire, stretching from the renaissance to the latest avantgarde. The Chamber Choir, with its characteristic Nordic sound and wide ranging virtousity, has been an ideal ensemble for several generations of Swedish composers. Internationally the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir is in the absolute top league of mixed choirs, receiving many international awards, including the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and the Edison Prize. Several tours are made every year which have taken the choir throughout Europe, the USA and Canada. The choir has made numerous recordings of the a cappella repertoire and is to be found in the catalogues of many record companies. Together with the Swedish Radio Choir the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir has made several recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - Verdi's Quattro Pezzi Sacri, Mozart's Requiem under Riccardo Muti and Haydn's Die Schöpfung and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis under James Levine. Riccardo Muti has also several times brought the choirs to Milan for concerts at La Scala. Furthermore the EECC has worked with Concentus Musicus of Vienna and their conductor Nicolaus Hamoncourt, a cooperation which has been documented on for example a recording of a complete Handel's Messiah. During the past few years, the EECC and the Swedish Radio Choir have been frequent guests at the Philharmonie in Berlin, where they have made concerts and recordings of Brahm's Ein Deutsches Requiem, Schumann's Szenen aus Goethes Faust and Stravinskij's Oedipus Rex with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Claudio Abbado. Beside the extensive a cappella projects, the EECC collaborates with the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, often performs on Swedish Radio and Television and is - since many years - at the service of the Swedish National Radio.