Erwin Ortner

The Arnold Schoenberg Choir continues to be led by Erwin Ortner, who began his career as a singer with the Vienna Boys’ Choir and then studied conducting and church music at the Vienna College of Music with Hans Swarowsky, Hans Gillesberger, and others. In 1980 Ortner himself was named professor of choral conducting, and between 1996 and 2002 he served as dean of the College of Music, which subsequently became the University of Music. In December 2009 Ortner was appointed the Vienna Hof-kapellmeister and took over leadership of the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle. In 1996 Ortner and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir recorded all of Franz Schubert’s secular choral music, for which they won the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason d’Or, the Prix Caecilia, and Japan’s Grand Prize of the Academy Awards.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 23 March 1997 in Mozart’s “Sparrow” Mass and Haydn’s Stabat mater led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

August 2011