The Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich accompanies the founding choir in Dvořák's cantata «The Spectre's Bride».
Around 15,000 people lived in Zurich in 1841. The university was only eight years old at the time, there was no railway station or horse-drawn trams, but the city walls were still standing - and the Harmonie Singers' Association was founded: a choir that played a key role in the history of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich.
It was one of the four choirs without which neither the orchestra could have been founded nor the Tonhalle am See built. In return, these so-called founding choirs were contractually guaranteed privileges: they were allowed to rehearse in the Tonhalle and perform with the orchestra on favourable terms. Not all of these agreements have survived the decades, but the close contact has remained. The Harmonie concert choir, as it has been known since 1998, still rehearses in the club hall of the Tonhalle Zurich. And is now presenting «The Spectre's Bride» by Antonín Dvořák, who was born in 1841, together with the orchestra.
The concert will be conducted by Peter Kennel, who has directed the choir for exactly 25 years - and has thus shaped a good 13 per cent of its long history.
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