With a concise portrait of Annette Schlenker, we would like to introduce the choir and the team in the background.
When work becomes a calling:
In 2005, Thomas Kammel, music teacher atSchiller high School, the New Chamber Choir – according to special rules: The demands are high. We rehearse for hours on Saturdays. The youngsters are fine. There are first performances, more to come. There are more and more, the radius is getting bigger.
Today there are about 40 concerts per year on the program. The gold medals at competitions soon fill a display case. There are concert tours all over the world: Estonia and Finland, Brazil, the Balkans, Mexico and Guatemala, Romania - funded by sponsors, including the Heidenheimer Volksbank. In 2014/15 the choir will be the godparents' choir of the SWR vocal ensemble, and in autumn 2019 they will be the godparents' choir of the international Bach Academy in Stuttgart and the Gächinger Cantorey.
An insight into a rehearsal on Saturday morning offers a wonderful introduction to the idea of this internationally successful youth choir. The rehearsal is varied: speaking the text rhythmically, counting, individual voices, finally tutti – and then filing again. "This is really good music, you can already guess it!" Thomas Kammel motivates the singers. And the choir? One can read in their faces how the maturing process carries the young people along; their eyes shine, they sing facing each other, begin to sway and are motivated by every step they make. Tangible joy results in the highest sound quality.
In an interview with choir singers, it turns out that the joy of music and the special community have counted for them for years: "We have very good friends here, you don't meet them like that anywhere else different people and characters from different age groups.” Tolerance and acceptance are very important. In addition, the trips are something very special: "The culture in Guatemala was very impressive, the host family gave us deep insights!"
But by no means everything is easy, especially not this spring. The major concert tour to South Africa and Namibia planned for May 2020 had to be canceled with a heavy heart because of the corona pandemic, as did a series of concerts. How things will continue after the summer break is still unclear. The African proverb and motto of the New Chamber Choir still applies:
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Annette Schlenker (Ulm) in summer 2020
english:
The New Chamber Choir of theSchiller Gymnasium Heidenheim
Nulla etica sine esthetica.
Since its foundation in 2005, the approximately 70 young singers of the Neuer Kammerchor Heidenheim have given over 500 concerts and participated in competitions and concert tours around the world, often bringing home gold medals. Former concert tours brought the choir to Estonia and Finland, Brazil, the Balkans, Mexico and Guatemala, and Romania.
Thomas Kammel, conductor and founder of the choir, practices a wide range of genres with the young singers and enhances every piece until perfection. Clearly an outstanding feature of the choir is its wide repertoire, which includes folk songs, gospel, sacred singings, and operettas, finding favor around the world.
With about 40 concerts per year in addition to their everyday life at school, the singers of the Neuer Kammerchor of the Schiller-Gymnasium Heidenheim present brilliantly even the most difficult choral literature.
Thomas Kammel, music pedagogue at the Schiller-Gymnasium Heidenheim, inspires the young singers, boys, and girls of the age of fourteen to twenty, with a simple method: having fun at being successful and in rehearsing. Then even weekly Saturday morning rehearsals become great fun.
Friendship, acceptance, and tolerance seem to be the engine of the marvelous work the young people create together and define their motivation to encounter even the hardest obstacles. May those be difficult Renaissance compositions, long concert tours in uncharted environments, or even a global pandemic.
During the years 2020 and 2021, not a single rehearsal was left out. Rehearsing in small groups, with masks and distance or rehearsing via video call, the young singers tried everything possible to stand up against the virus and keep on singing.
But why all these inconveniences? Because the young people love making music together and want to spread happiness around society even in the darkest of times.
This passion for singing is the cornerstone Thomas Kammel relies on. In addition to the vocal results he achieves with his work, the formation of values and the shaping of an aesthetic consciousness is his highest priority. Even the youngest singers join the choir at a very high level, learning from and with the older singers. Therefore, the African saying has been become the slogan of the Neuer Kammerchor: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.", perfectly fitting the mindset of the singers. Their intention to let their voices be heard around the world to connect different cultures and build relationships, motivates, and inspires a spark of people, who end up supporting the choir's work with diverse means.