St Paul's Church opens its doors and invites you to top-class choir concerts

Official opening of the Kulturkirche Paulus on 24/25 September 2022 with the Swiss Youth Choir, ChorBasel, Männerstimmen Basel and others

St Paul's Church has arrived in the future. After two summer closures to upgrade the infrastructure, the historic building is now ready to take its place as a cultural and choral centre in Basel's network of music venues. The sponsoring organisation ‘Kulturkirche Paulus’ would like to celebrate this with six opening concerts.

The Swiss Youth Choir (24 September at 16:30), the elite of the Swiss choral scene and an important national cultural ambassador at home and abroad for 25 years, will kick things off. Under the direction of Bernese conductor Nicolas Fink (who is also chief conductor of the professional WDR radio choir), the choir will present a cross-section of its current repertoire, which is characterised by freshness, musicality and precision.

At the official ceremony (24 September at 6 pm), followed by an aperitif, two passionate choral singers, Cantonal Councillor Kaspar Sutter and Parliament President Jo Vergeat, will give a welcome address from the canton; Eva Herzog, Member of the Council of States and member of the board of the Parliamentary Group on Music (PGM), will also deliver a brief greeting from the federal government.

In the second Saturday concert (24 September at 8 pm), the Männerstimmen Basel - who recently won several prizes in Greece - will be christening their fifth CD ‘Diluvium’ with choral works relating to the Basel Magdalene Flood of 1480, including new compositions by renowned composers such as Ivo Antognini, Carl Rütti and Ēriks Ešenvalds). At the same time, the award-winning male choir will bid farewell to its conductor Oliver Rudin, who is handing over the baton to younger hands after 15 years.

The opening series continues on Sunday 25 September with a double concert by the duo René Perler (baritone) and Romano Giefer (organ). The centrepiece of the late Romantic recital is the large quarter-hour Heine ballad ‘Die Wallfahrt nach Kevelaer’, set to music by Felix Weingartner from Basel and supplemented with songs by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger and Augustinus Franz Kropfreiter. A shortened programme can be heard at 10:15 am, the full programme at 2:30 pm.

In between, ChorBasel invites all singing enthusiasts to a lunchtime concert with open singing (25 September at 12 noon). Whether vocal jazz, folk songs, madrigals, pop or hits: the 80 or so singers, led by Benjamin Rapp and Philippe Rayot, have something for every musical taste.

To round off the musical weekend, the choir of the St Chrischona Theological Seminary will perform at the Sunday evening service of ‘Alban-Arbeit’ / ‘Kirche kreativ’ (25 September at 6 pm). Under the direction of Susanne Hagen, the choir will frame Matthias Mittelbach's sermon entitled ‘Polyphonic’ with a brilliant mixture of classical music and gospel.

Admission to all events is free (a collection of CHF 20 is recommended for the concerts). Seats for the official ceremony can be reserved by e-mail to the Kulturkirche Paulus association until 6 September: info@kulturkirche-paulus.ch