Singer Pur

The aim to make a capella singing their lives already developed at school: soon after leaving five former members of the famous Regensburger Domspatzen cathedral boys’ choir put it into practice and founded a vocal ensemble.

It was a fortunate love affair that brought a soprano into their ranks: soon afterwards the sextet with the unusual combination of voices (a soprano, three tenors, a baritone and a bass), now named Singer Pur, won first prize in the 1994 Deutscher Bundeswettbewerb, the German national competition, a year later the coveted Grand Prix for vocal ensembles at the international Tampere Music Festival in Finland, and was launched on its road to becoming the leading German-speaking vocal group. Soon television and radio appearances, CD recordings, invitations to major festivals and concerts in over 30 countries established an international career.

There are no stylistic limitations to Singer Pur’s repertoire. Their programmes include anything performable by six voices from medieval times to the avant-garde, a host of new compositions and arrangements written for the group, various forms of improvisation, co-operations with musicians as diverse as the Hilliard Ensemble, the composer and jazz clarinettist Michael Riessler and the electric guitar quintet Go Guitars.

A wide selection of CDs, several of which have been awarded prizes, includes Nordisk Vokalmusik (Scandinavian music), Ahi Vita (with Michael Riessler) and the complete secular oeuvre of Jacobus Gallus. Most recently the group released The Song of Songs, settings from different centuries of the Bible’s beautiful love poetry.

For the first Singer Pur CD issued by its new label, OehmsClassics, featuring compositions by Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino and Ivan Moody written for Singer Pur, as well as Joanne Metcalf‘s cycle Il nome del bel fior written for Singer Pur and the Hilliard Ensemble, the group was awarded the 2005 “ECHO Klassik” CD prize, considered the most prestigious CD award in Europe. And, very unusually, Singer Pur received the prize a second time within two years: most recently the CD SOS - Save Our Songs, featuring the most beautiful German folksongs newly arranged for and by Singer Pur, was awarded the 2007 ECHO.

Claudia Reinhard, soprano
Klaus Wenk, tenor
Markus Zapp, tenor
Manuel Warwitz, tenor
Reiner Schneider-Waterberg, baritone
Marcus Schmidl, bass