Eric Ericson Award 2024 Oct 26

Three of the world’s best young choral conductors who have advanced from the semi-finals will now compete for victory at this Final Concert with the Swedish Radio Choir, Zero8 and S:t Jacobs Chamber Choir. It will be a thrilling finale with choral art at the highest level.

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The international competition for young choral conductors, the Eric Ericson Award, is organized in memory of Eric Ericson’s great cultural contribution as a choral conductor and pedagogue, and is today the world’s foremost choral conductor competition. The winner gets the opportunity to work with 10 of Europe’s leading radio choirs and receives a prize sum of SEK 100,000, provided by the Rosenborg Gehrmans Foundation. The two second prize winners each receive a scholarship of SEK 25,000.

The award strives to achieve a very high artistic and competitive level in choral conducting, corresponding to the status that Eric Ericson achieved worldwide during his active years.

The Eric Ericson Award is organized by Sveriges Radio under the auspices of Berwaldhallen, and in collaboration with the Royal The Musical Academy with the support of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Märta Christina and Magnus Vahlquist Foundation, the Rosenborg Gehrman Foundation, and the European Radio and Television Union (EBU). The competition is planned to be held every three years.

In 2021, Krista Audere from Latvia won the Eric Ericson Award and since then she has, as part of the award, given concerts with around ten European radio choirs. She has also been appointed as the first guest conductor for the Swedish Radio Choir.

In the finals, we get to meet the three finalists chosen from 84 applicants, as they conduct the Swedish Radio Choir in each choral piece from the Western music tradition. In addition, the men’s choir Zero8 and St. Jacob’s Chamber Choir will also perform with their respective programs.

Text: Bengt Arwén

(Translated by Anna Rickman)

SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR

2024/2025

Participants

Swedish Radio Choir

32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.

The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.

The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.

The three finalists and Kaspars Putniņš, principal conductor

Zero8

Zero8 är en Stockholmsbaserad manskör som grundades 2007 av en grupp studenter från Stockholms Musik Gymnasium. Med grunden i barbershop, sjunger kören även musik ur den klassiska repertoaren och låter de två genrerna influera varandra.

Kören leds av Rasmus Krigström, sångare i Ringmasters som 2012 blev världsmästare i Barbershop, och består av 20-50 sångare och barbershoppare i världsklass. Bland Zero8 meriter kan nämnas en topp 3 placering i International Barbershop Chorus Competition, en Grand Prix-vinst på Rimini International Choral Competition, tre CD-skivor samt återkommande medverkande i Sveriges Television.

Rasmus Krigström, conductor

Marc Korovitch, Choirmaster

Chief conductor of the Jeune Choeur de Paris, he started a collaboration with the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart in 2013 (including a recording of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé), and also works regularly with the Chœur de Radio-France and the Choeur Accentus since 2014, for tours, radio performances, recordings, preparations and A Cappella concerts. He collaborates with many personalities, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Louis Langrée, Stéphane Denève, Daniel Harding, Laurence Equilbey, L. G. Alarcon… He has also conducted the WDR Rundfunkchor in 2016. In July 2016, he has prepared both the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and the NDR Chor for Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette. In 2017, he has participate to the opening of the Seine Musical conducting the choir accentus and in 2018, he starts a collaboration with the Croatian Radio Choir. Korovitch works for many festivals: the Mozartwoche in Salzburg, Recontres Musicales d’Evian, the Festival de Radio-France in Montpellier or the festival Mozart in New York.

S:t Jacobs Chamber Choir

Gary Graden, conductor

Gary Graden föddes i USA och studerade vid Clark University, Hartt School of Music och vid Aspen Summer Music Festival samt kördirigering för Eric Ericson och orkesterdirigering för Kjell Ingebretssen på Musikhögskolan i Stockholm. Graden har sjungit i Eric Ericsons Kammarkör och har varit medlem i vokalensemblen Lamentabile Consort.

Graden är idag domkyrkokantor i Storkyrkan och S:t Jacobs kyrka och har tidigare varit lärare på Stockholms Musikgymnasium där han grundade Stockholms Musikgymnasiums Kammarkör. Med denna kör och S:t Jacobs Kammarkör har han med stor framgång deltagit i en lång rad körfestivaler och körtävlingar i Europa och Sverige. Graden har även deltagit i många festivaler som IFCM World Symposium i Minneapolis och Kyoto, samt vid ACDA National Convention i USA. Han är en efterfrågad dirigent, lärare och jurymedlem både nationellt och internationell och har dirigerat en lång rad utländska körer som SWR Vocal Ensemble, Orpheus Vokalensemble, Jauna Muzika, Pro Coro Canada, the Formosa Singers, The Singapore Ensemble Singers och IFCM World Youth Choir.

Med trion WÅG (Wager Åstrand Graden) utforskar och experimenterar Graden med improvisationsmusik för röst och instrument och med S:t Jacob/Storkyrkans vokalensemble framför han repertoar från alla epoker för soloröster och liten ensemble. Förutom sitt intresse för nutida musik har Graden även framfört större verk som Händels Messias, Mozarts requiem och c-mollmässa, Bachs passioner och h-mollmässa, liksom rekvier av Brahms, Duruflé, Fauré och Michael Haydn.Hans arbete som dirigent och sångare finns dokumenterat på ett flertal radioinspelningar och CD-skivor.

År 2005 utsågs Gary Graden till Årets körledare. 1998 fick han Johannes Norrby-medaljen och år 2009 erhöll han tillsammans med S:t Jacobs Kammarkör Guidoneumpriset från Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo i Italien.

Josef Beltzikoff, host