Alexander Schmitt (biography in English)
Hauptinhalt
Alexander Schmitt has worked as vocal coach, choral conductor and singer. Since January 2018 he has been the Artistic Director of the MDR Leipzig Radio Children's Choir.
Since January 2018 Alexander Schmitt has been responsible for the artistic profile of the MDR Children's Choir. His main interest lies in the acquisition of a wide-ranging repertoire as well as musical outreach and the creation of new radio and television formats for what is the only children's choir within the remit of the German Broadcasting Corporation (ARD). As well as initiating composition competitions he has conceived programmes such as "1001 Nacht" (Arabian Nights) and "Didgeridoo trifft Kanguru" (Didgeridoo meets Kangaroo), at his instigation specially commissioned for family concerts. With projects that consciously leave traditional forms of concert performance behind and involve other genres Alexander Schmitt and the MDR Children's Choir continue to undertake new musical journeys of discovery.
Alexander Schmitt received his earliest musical training at the age of six with the Limburg Cathedral Boys' Choir. He studied extensively in the fields of musical and vocal pedagogy, singing, choral conducting and German at the University of Cologne, the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. He acted as musical assistant to the chief director of music at Cologne Cathedral, taught primary school classes as part of the educational projects "Jedem Kind seine Stimme" as well as "JeKits" and as vocal coach for the Aalto children's choir was co-responsible for the vocal training of the Essen Opera children's choir and its soloists.
From 2008 Alexander Schmitt was employed with Cologne University's Collegium musicum as assistant to the director of university music. In addition to his responsibilities for existing university choirs he founded a vocal ensemble and in 2012 a children's choir. With the latter he dedicated himself to a repertoire from a variety of genres, ranging from Gregorian chant to choral symphonic works, first performances of contemporary music, folksong, hip-hop and musical theatre. He has also worked with a number of other choirs in North Rhine-Westphalia and as a singer has performed in concerts of Lieder, oratorio as well as ensemble works.
