Rundfunkchor Berlin

With around 60 concerts a year, CD recordings and international guest performances, the Rundfunkchor Berlin is one of the world’s outstanding choral ensembles. Three Grammy Awards alone are emblematic of the quality of its recordings. Its broad repertoire, a flexible, richly nuanced sound, flawless precision and thrilling interaction make the professional choir a partner to major orchestras and conductors, including Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In Berlin, the choir closely collaborates with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and their principal conductors.

The Rundfunkchor Berlin has also attracted international attention through interdisciplinary projects that challenge the conventions of the classical concert format and create new ways of experiencing choral music. The staged production of Brahms’s Requiem as human requiem by Jochen Sandig and a team of Sasha Waltz & Guests became a milestone. Guest performances took place in New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Adelaide, and Istanbul, and in 2023 in Elefsina, Greece. In its project LUTHER dancing with the gods, the choir explored Luther’s impact on and within the arts in autumn 2017 through a genre-defying concert performance created with Robert Wilson and featuring music by Bach, Nystedt and Reich. For the interdisciplinary concert installation THE WORLD TO COME in the 2020/21 season, the Rundfunkchor Berlin created a Berlin festive mass inspired by Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. In the 2023/24 season, the Rundfunkchor Berlin staged Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe solennelle with Rote Messe. The music theatre performance, directed by Anna-Sophie Mahler, combined Rossini's mass with works by Schönberg and others in the former industrial hall MaHalla in Berlin-Oberschöneweide. In its anniversary season 2024/25, the Rundfunkchor Berlin brought classical choral music together with the urban dance language of breaking for the first time in Flying Mozart. Created in collaboration with the Flying Steps and the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie, this staging of Mozart’s Requiem placed the work in a contemporary setting through light art and electronic music.

Since the 2016/17 season, the RundfunkchorLounge has been a permanent feature of the choir’s programme. In the informal atmosphere of Heimathafen Neukölln, it brings together choral singing, chamber music and discussions of socially relevant issues. The 2026/27 season will focus on topics including water and its use in times of scarcity, alongside themes of desire, physicality, and time and temporality.

Through community projects aimed at a range of audiences – including its large-scale sing-along concert at the Berlin Philharmonie and the Song Exchange for Berlin’s schoolchildren – the Rundfunkchor Berlin aims to encourage as many people as possible to sing. Its extensive education programme SING! seeks to build sustainable networks among a range of partners in order to establish singing as a natural part of everyday life in Berlin’s primary schools. With its Academy and Schola, as well as the International Masterclass for Choral Conducting in Berlin, the ensemble is committed to supporting the next generation of professional singers and conductors.

Founded in 1925, the Rundfunkchor Berlin marks more than 100 years of its history in 2026. The choir has been shaped by conductors including Helmut Koch, Dietrich Knothe, Robin Gritton and Simon Halsey. Since the 2015/16 season, Dutch conductor Gijs Leenaars has led the ensemble as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director. Simon Halsey remains associated with the choir as its Honorary Conductor and a guest conductor.

The Rundfunkchor Berlin is an ensemble of the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre gGmbH Berlin, which is funded by Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg