The "Anton-Webern-Chor Freiburg" constituted itself from the "Frankfurter Kammerchor" (Chamber Choir of Frankfurt) 14 years ago. In 1966, Hans Michael Beuerle had taken over the direction of this student's choir at the University of Frankfurt and the ensemble had achieved nationwide and later even international fame with the programmes and interpretations it offered. Contrary to a general trend, any specialisation was avoided and musical styles from all stylistic eras ranging from the Renaissance to Modernity were cultivated with equal intensity. In 1994, the choir became the overall winner of the International Choir Competition organised by the European Radio Stations with a recording of compositions by Clement Jannequin, Gioacchino Rossini and Arnold Schönberg at the Radio Station of Hesse. This was followed by invitations to various festivals. Several composers wrote pieces of music for the ensemble.
The move of the ensemble to Freiburg was associated with increasing professionalism. In the course of an "Anton Webern Weekend", the choir performed the entire choir compositions of its new namesake. Many of the programmes offered by the ensemble continued to span the scale from Ancient to New Music as well as from music to literature.
Examples from recent times are Monologues (music by Carlo Gesualdo and Morton Feldman, texts by Samuel Beckett), De profundis musical versions from Bach and Schönberg and - together with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra - The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, Friedrich Hölderlin and Heinz Holliger. In 2002, the Anton-Webern Choir organised a “Portrait Concert" on the occasion of the 50th Birthday of Wolfgang Rihm" as part of the series "Rihm-Fragmente 2002" and in February 2003, the choir followed an invitation of the Bavarian Radio Station to Nuremberg, where it performed an A-cappella programme as part of the Ligeti Festival, combined with texts from the poet Sándor Weöres, that was entitled "From Folk Song to Avantgarde, on the occasion of the 80th birthday of György Ligeti" together with the actor and speaker Klaus Hemmerle.
This programme was reintroduced last year and performed in Basel and Freiburg. The ensemble also had performances in Constance, Freiburg and Stuttgart in 2004, where it presented its new programme Chants d'amour – Olivier Messiaen's Cinq Rechants, contrasted with musical versions of the Song of Songs by Dunstable, Lasso and Josquin des Prez and a chanson by Le Jeune. The Anton-Webern Choir will give a guest performance of this programme at the Music Festival of Schleswig Holstein in the summer of this year.
Together with "Les Cornets Noirs", the Anton-Webern-Choir of Freiburg already performed Monteverdi's Vespers of the Blessed Virgin several times within the past years.
