Choir and orchestra conductor
Hans Michael Beuerle was born in Berlin. He comes from a family of musicians, where he had the chance to familiarise himself at an early age with vocal and instrumental ensemble music, in particular with baroque music. He studied the violin and chamber music at the Hoch Conservatory in Frakfurt. Afterwards, he initially studied school music at the Frankfurt Conservatory, then changed to orchestra music and finally completed a postgraduate course in conducting (head of Orchestra: Carl Maria Zwißler, head of choir: Helmuth Rilling). At the same time, he studied musicology, German and philosophy at the University of Frankfurt and obtained his doctor's degree in philosophy from Ludwig Finscher with a thesis on the A-cappella compositions by Johannes Brahms. His encounters with Gustav Lenzewski and Theodor W. Adorno were crucial for him as they resulted in deepening his knowledge of New Music, in particular the music of the second school of Vienna.
During his studies, Beuerle started to work with a small student's choir at the University of Frankfurt, from which the “Kammerchor Frankfurt” originated. In 1971, he took over the artistic direction of the Boy's Choir "Laubacher Kantorei" and successfully worked together with them over two years. In 1973, he got a teaching position in the field of choir conducting at the Conservatory of Trossingen, accepted a professorship at the conservatory of Karlsruhe in 1977 and changed to a professorship for the direction of choirs and orchestras at the Conservatory of Freiburg in 1980, where he still teaches today.
In addition to his teaching activities, Beuerle has been the artistic director of the Freiburg Bach Choir and the Freiburg Bach Orchestra since 1983. In addition, he continued to work together with the Kammerchor Frankfurt, which moved to Freiburg in 1991 and developed to a professional vocal ensemble, giving itself the new name "Anton-Webern-Chor Freiburg”.
His guest performances with his ensembles, guest conductorships and master courses led him to travels all over Europe, Japan and the USA.
