Netherlands Radio Choir

The Netherlands Radio Choir is the largest professional choir in the Netherlands. Since its founding in 1946, the choir has performed a broad repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music and has been synonymous with top-level music performed with passion. It works in various sizes and formations, depending on the music concerned and the conductor.
First official chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir was Kenneth Montgomery. After him came Robin Gritton, Martin Wright, Simon Halsey, Celso Antunes and Gijs Leenaars. As from the 2015-2016 season Klaas Stok is chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir. Michael Gläser has been its permanent guest conductor since September 2010.
The Netherlands Radio Choir has worked with guest conductors such as Marcus Creed and Peter Dijkstra, with early music specialists as Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe and Ton Koopman, and in the symphonic choral repertoire with Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan, Markus Stenz and Sir Simon Rattle, among others.
The choir often performs with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in public radio concert series, and it is regularly invited to perform with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since the early 1980s, the Netherlands Radio Choir has been a frequent guest in the Saturday Matinee series of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In these concerts the choir has regularly performed pre- mieres and works by contemporary composers such as Ligeti, Boulez, Birtwistle, Kagel, Reich, Wagemans, Adès, Adams and Vleggaar. Most concerts of the Netherlands Radio Choir are live broadcasted by Radio 4. On CD the Netherlands Radio Choir excels in a broad repertoire including music by Keuris, MacMillan, Mahler, Poulenc, Rossini and Wagner.