Vienna Philharmonia Choir

The Vienna Philharmonia Choir was founded in 2002 on an initiative by Gerard Mortier and at first was named depending on the performance occasion as the Project Choir of the Ruhrtriennale or the Baden Baden Festival Choir. It has been known by its current name since 2006. Some of the Choir’s most significant appearances since then have been in productions of Bizet’s L’Arlésienne at the Bremen Music Festival, Die Zauberflöte in Ferrara, Parsifal in Baden-Baden, and Don Giovanni at the Ruhrtriennale, in which the singers collaborated with Claudio Abbado, Marc Minkowski, and Kent Nagano, among others. In April 2008 the Choir took part in the Salzburg Festival’s tour of Mozart’s Figaro to Japan, and they performed in Robert Wilson’s new production of Der Freischütz at the Whitsun Festival in Baden Baden. The Vienna Philharmonia Choir is also active in the concert hall; moreover, it has appeared in theatrical performances of Wilhelm Genazino’s Courasche and Falk Richter’s Unter Eis. The Choir’s director and founder is Walter Zeh, who for many years belonged to the Vienna State Opera Chorus.

April 2009