Robert Mehlhart
Father Robert Mehlhart OP is an internationally-recognized expert on Gregorian chant. He is a lecturer at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich and Kapellmeister of the Court and Collegiate Church of St Cajetan (the Theatine Church). Since 2012 he has directed the choir of the Theatine Church (formerly the Royal Court Choir) and the orchestra of St Cajetan (whose members come from Munich’s renowned orchestras and the masterclasses of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich) in his role as Kapellmeister.
The focus of his musical work is on the historic repertory of the Bavarian Court Chapel and composers associated with it such as Orlando di Lasso, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph and Michael Haydn.
As a soloist with the Regensburger Domspatzen, Robert Mehlhart pursued a wide range of concert activities. He studied church music and musicology in Vienna, specializing in choral and ensemble conducting. In 2006 he spent a year at the University of Oxford, where he studied conducting and singing, and was appointed organist and cantor of Blackfriars Hall. From 2008 to 2012 he directed the chamber music series Wiener Kreuzgangkonzerte, which he initiated, at the Dominikanerkloster in Vienna.
As a member of Vienna’s Arnold Schoenberg Choir he has performed at international festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the styriate and the Carinthian Summer Festival, and worked with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Erwin Ortner, Adam Fischer and Ivor Bolton, and with renowned orchestras including Concentus Musicus Vienna, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and lautten compagney BERLIN.
He regularly works outside a liturgical context, due to his cooperations with many cultural institutions and his work as an arranger. These projects are documented on numerous recordings for the labels Resonando and Sony Classical International. The CD recording Meditations. Chant & Piano with Cantatorium and the jazz pianist Tim Allhoff was placed on the Spiegel bestseller list in 2023.