WALDESLUST

Under the direction of Anne Kohler, the Bundesjugendchor (the National Youth Choir of Germany) musically explores the forest and nature. The choir, interpreting the compositions at the highest musical level, portray the forest not only as a place of silence and longing, but also as a mysterious place of magic – with wolves, singing stones and clear water, or as a metaphor for the human conscience and its vulnerability. The repertoire includes works for mixed a cappella choir by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Reger, Ravel and Raymond Murray Schafer as well as featuring Jan Kopp’s Ode an das Sägemehl (Ode to Sawdust, 2022), composed especially for the Bundesjugendchor. In it Kopp sets a poem by the Russian poet Alexej Porvin (*1982) to music, which poetically reflects on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine using the materiality of the forest. Set for release on 24 May on our partner label Carus, listen to a pre-release track from the album of the choir’s performance of Reger’s Abendlied.