Five questions forJuliane Roever, founder and conductor of the Junger Kammerchor Berlin, one of four amateur choirs invited to our Boulanger choir festival on November 23.

With regard to our choir, I can say that it means a great deal to them, because they give it high priority in their lives alongside their jobs or studies. They rehearse in their free time one evening a week and get together for additional rehearsals and concerts on weekends. An ambitious choir like ours demands a high level of commitment so that everyone is happy with the musical result in the end. Before we start, I ask who is committed to singing in the upcoming rehearsal phase. Of course, it is impossible to rule out the possibility of something unexpected coming up in someone's professional or private life. That is why we have 40 singers in the Junge Kammerchor Berlin, eight of whom per voice, or a good 30, sing in a concert.

A choir means community: there are close friendships, there are relationships, and in our case, there is definitely a lively “interdisciplinary” exchange. We are a fairly academic choir, but we represent a wide variety of professions. Everyone enjoys being among very nice, interesting people and pursuing this shared hobby together. I am always delighted to hear that new members are warmly welcomed and quickly feel at home with us. Twice a year, we have an intensive rehearsal weekend outside Berlin. This is a very enriching part of choir life because we spend a lot of time together. Furthermore,vwe have started visiting partner choirs on concert tours every other year, with whom we organize concerts together. We have just been to Prague and Vienna. 
 

I know most of the other choirs—we are in very good company! It is always incredibly interesting to listen to the the others, especially because we work quite similiar in some aspects. With the Collegium Musicum, we performed together several times, for example. You get to know new repertoire and the different approaches of the respective conductors. We always particularly enjoy performing with other choirs because it broadens our horizons. We were definitely very happy about the invitation to the Konzerthaus.

We actually sang two pieces by Boulanger three years ago. When it comes to female composers, the sisters are very well known, but they are not yet so included in freely compiled concert programs. When looking for works by female composers, many people think of Lili Boulanger. In putting together my programme, I have now explicitly included students of Nadia Boulanger.

In addition to a very nuanced musical language, her works possess a multifaceted impressionistic harmony. I find that she sounds distinctly different from her male colleagues: her choral pieces reveal how much she is influenced by writing songs. I always have the feeling that we are actually singing a Kunstlied because the role of the piano is so important. In addition, the voice registers are often used like soloists. In my opinion, this is typical of Lili Boulanger.