Introduction to the Choir
The Landshut Europa Chor is a male-voice choir and a project choir, established in 1996. It comprises up to 40 singers from the city and district of Landshut, as well as from other Lower Bavarian and recently even Upper Palatinate regions. Heinrich Wannisch has led the choir from the beginning. Throughout the year the active members constantly sing in their local choirs. Four to five Saturdays a year, the Europa Chor meets in full-day rehearsals to develop a programme of songs which are then performed during a week-long concert tour somewhere in Europe, usually around Whitsun. The first of our many European tours took us to Italy. In 2006, we aptly took on the name "Landshut Europa Chor".
Here’s a list of some of our more recent concert trips:
2005: We performed in Paris and our French twin city of Compiègne.
2007: Our next journey took us to Scotland with performances in Elgin (twin city of Landshut) and Edinburgh.
2008: We visited the lagoon city of Chioggia near Venice.
2009: We were in our Austrian twin city of Ried im Innkreis. There, together with the Liedertafel Ried, we gave a concert to a full house.
2010: We were in Montefiascone/Italy, a twin city of Ergoldsbach in the district of Landshut. In the same year, on June 12, we sang together with the Liedertafel Waldkirchen, a town not far from Landshut in the Bavarian Forest.
2011: Our concert tour took us to Krakow and Wroclaw/Poland and Bratislava/Slovakia.
2012: We traveled to Lombardy for a concert with the Coro Polifonico Farnesiano from Piacenza. This choir then made a return visit to Landshut the following year for a well-received concert of both choirs together.
2013: There was a short trip to Southern Tyrolia.
2014: Our one-week tour destination was Slovenia, with a concert with the Obala choir from Koper and a service in the Cathedral of Trieste being the musical highlights.
2015: We visited France, specifically the province of Alsace, with a concert in the city of Selestat.
2016: We spent a week in Hungary and performed in Siofok together with choirs from Szekesfehervar and Siofok.
2017: We traveled to Sibiu in Romania, the youngest twin city of Landshut, thus completing the visits to all five of our twin cities.
2018: For the first time the Europa Chor stayed in Germany for its concert tour, visiting some Hanseatic cities on the Baltic Sea. The two concerts in Rostock and Wismar were the musical highlights.
2019: The Styrian capital of Graz/Austria was the next destination, with a great concert with the academic choir Gothia zu Graz. On the way there, on Whit Monday we celebrated the festival service in the Admont Abbey, much to the delight of the monks and many pilgrims.
2022: The trip to Brno/Czech Republic had to be postponed from 2020 because of Corona. When it finally worked out we had a successful concert with the Vachs Chor der mährischen Lehrerinnen (a female-voice choir, for a change) at the Night of Open Churches in Brno.
2023: This time we toured in September. We went to Brussels where we visited the European Parliament and had a very successful concert with the Deutscher Chor Brüssel. And in October, we had a return visit from the women's choir from Brno with a great concert here in Landshut.
With these trips and concerts our intention is to help get to know other European countries better, to make friends, and to make a small contribution to European integration through music. The choir members themselves bear the travel costs.
Of course, the choir also performs locally during the year at special events. For example, on October 28, 2006, it participated in the anniversary celebration of the partnership between the city of Landshut and the city of Schio/Italy together with the Coro G.E.S. from Schio in the Prunksaal (Grand Hall) of the Landshut City Hall. Also, on 5 November, 2022, we celebrated – a year later than planned – the choir’s 25th anniversary with a sold-out concert in the Landshut City Hall, together with the Musikverein Pinsdorf/Austria and the Akademischer Chor Sibiu/Roumania.
The choir has also recorded a CD in which it presents itself with Bavarian, German, and European songs. The repertoire ranges from folk music to classical, from spirituals to jazz and swing as well as songs from musicals. Of course, we also have a broad religious repertoire from various epochs.
Heinrich Wannisch
Choirmaster
President: Dr. Hans-Joachim Wypior
Choirmaster and conductor: Heinrich Wannisch
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