About us...

A brief view over history

Moravia Cantat in the 70ies.

Moravia Cantat is an ensemble for choir, instrumental music and historic dancing. The ensemble has made it its goal to keep the German musical culture and heritage of Bohemia and Moravia alive and to develop it further. The ensemble has a strong desire to reveal all that is common to the musical cultures of Germans, Czechs and Jews in this particular region at the heart of Europe, and to show how this cultures interacted and influenced each other.

It was founded in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1952 by expelled Germans from South Moravia. However, from the beginning the group has been open to young musicians from other regions. The repertory of Moravia Cantat, a South Moravian Choir, Instrumental and Dance Group covers secular and sacred choir music as well as historical dances, folk dance, music for strings, music for recorder ensemble and music from the renaissance played on original instruments.

Choir and orchestra,
directed by Widmar Hader

In its presentations the ensemble shows the spirit of pioneers often. A large part of the music the group performs it rediscovered in libraries and archives in Europe and the USA. The reconstruction and performance of baroque ballets stands exemplarily for this spirit as well as a program with Jewish music from Bohemia and Moravia. Many works of contemporary composers were performed (partially first performed) by the ensemble.

On Tour through  Austria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Italy (1980).

Tours abroad lead Moravia Cantat to Finland (1954, 1962), Norway (1961), Austria (1963, 1964), Southern Tyrol (1969), England (1971), France (1973), Brazil (1976), Austria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Italy (1980), USA (1982, 1986, 1994), Israel (1987/88) and South Africa and Namibia (2000).

A special relationship connects Moravia Cantat with Bohemia and Moravia. Already before the revolution of 1989 the group established contacts in the former Czechoslovakia. The ensemble travelled through Bohemia and Moravia in 1978 and 1989 - screened as tourist group, because there was no possibility for an official tour. As the first group of Germans originating from the Sudetenland the ensemble gave concerts in Prague and Böhmisch Kamnitz in the summer of 1990 and in Karlsbad in November 1991.

Yet in 1990 the group was engaged at the renovation of a German church and churchyard in Northern Bohemia - working together with young people from Czechoslovakia. Two concert tours lead the group to Moravia in 1992 and in 1998. In 2001 the ensemble made a German-Czech choir project and rehearsaled choral music from Jewish cantors from Bohemia and Moravia together with the Czech girls choir Ondrasek from Novy Jicin and performed these works in three concerts.

Moravia Cantat dancing in Kanaltal.

Moravia Cantat received several awards. The group was awarded with the prize for folk music of the Sudeten German Association in 1961 and with this South Moravian Cultural Award of the South Moravian Association in 1982. In 1988 the ensemble obtained the "European Prize for the Commitment to the Environment" in the category of "Cultural Heritage". Last but not least the group received the Adalbert Stifter Medal of the Sudeten German Association in 1995.

Moravia Cantat in Budapest (2002).

The ensemble has recorded over 200 pieces of music at radio stations and published eight records and four CDs. The CD "Gondelfahrt. Eine musikalische Reise durch Böhmen und Mähren" contains choir and instrumental music from the 18th to the 20th century and folk songs from South Moravia. The CD "Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt!" was recorded in the North Bohemian Cistercian monastery Ossegg and contains sacred music from the romanticism in Bohemia, Moravia and Sudeten Silesia.
The CD „Schma Jisroel“ has been recorded in 2003 at the St. Vitus Cathetral in Regensburg and contains jewish music of bohemia and moravia. After the care of german and czech culture Moravia Cantat was devoted to the third great musical tradition of the bohemian countries.
"Karls Brücke. Die kulturelle Polyphonie der böhmischen Länder" ist he fourth CD and appeared in 2007. It unifies works of moravian, czech and jewish composers throughout four centuries.