Around the Music Festival

German conductor Helmuth Rilling passed away at his home in Wurmbrunn, Germany, on February 11. He was 92. He was one of the leading authorities on Bach performance in the postwar era.

He was born into a family of musicians in Stuttgart. After studying at a Protestant theological seminary in Württemberg, he studied school music education, organ, composition, and choral conducting at the Stuttgart University of Music. He then traveled to Italy, studying at the Vatican and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.

In 1954, while still a student, he founded his first choir, the “Göhringer Kantorei.” After returning to Germany, he served as organist and choir director at Stuttgart’s Gedächtniskirche, conducting the Gedächtniskirche Figuralchor. From 1963 to 1966, he taught at the Church Music School in Spandau, and in 1965, he founded the Stuttgart Bach Collegium.

In 1967, he studied under Leonard Bernstein in New York. That same year, he became a professor of choral conducting at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (until 1985). In 1969, he became the conductor of the Frankfurt Choir.

In 1970, he co-founded the Oregon Bach Festival in the United States and served as its Artistic Director until 2013. His recording of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Credo, commissioned by the festival, won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Choral Recording. He received the Bach Medal in 2004 and the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize in 2011.

PHOTO：Helmuth Rilling