Founded 77 years ago, the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin is one of the world’s leading professional choirs. Numerous awards testify to its international reputation, including the German Record Critics’ Award, the ECHO Klassik, the Gramophone Award, the Choc de l’année, the Prix Caecilia, and the German Record Critics’ Award’s honorary prize, the “Nachtigall.”
The ensemble consists of 34 professionally trained singers and is renowned for its precise sound. Its repertoire ranges from historically informed Renaissance and Baroque interpretations to new interpretations of classical and romantic works and regular world premieres.
Justin Doyle has been the choir’s principal conductor and artistic director since the 2017–18 season. In November 2024, he made his second guest appearance in Japan with his ensemble and also stopped off in South Korea as part of this tour.
Previous recordings under Doyle’s direction, including works by Handel, Bach, Britten, and de Victoria, have been enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike. The first of two recordings featuring works by siblings Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy will be released in June 2025, followed in March 2026 by a recording of Haydn’s Seven Last Words with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.
With up to 50 concerts per season on stages across Germany and around the world, the RIAS Chamber Choir is one of the country’s most important touring choirs. In its home city, it presents six subscription concerts, including the renowned New Year’s Concert. The Berlin program also includes the Forum Concerts in collaboration with the Friends’ Association “Forum der Freunde und Förderer,” in which unusual locations are transformed into concert stages, as well as joint programs with sister ensembles such as the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin.
Together with the German Music Council, the RIAS Chamber Choir organizes the final concert of the German Prize for Choral Conducting every two years, which concludes a multi-year support program. Other music education projects include choir sponsorships for Berlin school choirs, musical salons, the Klingende Bilder (Sounding Pictures) in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, and audience workshops led by Justin Doyle. In addition, four academicians become part of the choir each season as part of the RIAS Chamber Choir Studio.
Leading artists such as Günther Arndt, Uwe Gronostay, Marcus Creed, Daniel Reuss, and Hans-Christoph Rademann have shaped and influenced the choir since its founding in 1948 as an ensemble of the American sector radio station. The choir regularly collaborates with major ensembles such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Freiburger Barockorchester, as well as with conductors such as René Jacobs, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Joana Mallwitz, Pablo Heras-Casado, and Krista Audere.
The RIAS Kammerchor Berlin is an ensemble of Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre gGmbH Berlin (ROC). Its shareholders are Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin, and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.
Please consult Nora-Henriette Friedel before making any changes or deletions to the current biography.