Youth Choir of the Collegium Musicum Luzern

Founded in 1982 by Alois Koch, the Collegium Musicum Luzern plays an indispensable role in the city’s church music life and collaborates closely with the Lucerne School of Music. It consists of a chorus, which is also open to trained amateurs; the Schola Gregoriana, which comprises students; and the Luzerner Kantorei and a youth choir, both of which are dedicated to promoting young talent. The idea of providing amateurs with intensive vocal and musical training was also the inspiration for the founding in 1987 of the Chœur de Chambre de l’Université de Fribourg. In various groupings the singers perform works from the Renaissance to the present—they have given the world premieres of several compositions—and they even devote themselves to staged projects and folk music. The Chœur has excelled in various national and international competitions: for example, in 1995, at the International Concours of Montreux as well as at the Choral Competition in Charmey, where the ensemble took both First Prize and the Audience Award; in 1999 they won Second Prize at the Swiss Choral Union Competition in Zug. Serving as Artistic Director of both the Collegium Musicum and the Chœur is Pascal Mayer, who studied choral conducting in Fribourg and Zurich and began his career as a singer with the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne as well as the Stuttgart Chamber Choir. Paul Sacher subsequently entrusted him with leadership of the Basel Chamber Choir. For a decade Mayer led the Da Camera Choir in Neuchâtel as well; from 1987 to 1997 he collaborated with the Chœur de Chambre Romand. In 1995 he joined with Hansruedi Kämpfen to found the Swiss Youth Choir. Mayer teaches choral conducting at the Lucerne School of Music.

August 2011