They don’t make a living from singing, but in many ways live for singing. For more than 150 years the singers of the Wiener Singverein have demonstrated that amateurs can make music at the highest level. Since its foundation, the choir of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music) in Vienna has been one of the best concert choirs in the world.
The term ‘amateur’ means ‘a lover’. And it was music lovers who founded the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna in 1812. In 1858 the Singverein of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde was founded as an offshoot of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. With Johann Herbeck as choral director, this newly formed chorus was of a very high standard right from the start, and became a sought-after interpreter of world premieres. In 1867, for example, the Singverein gave the premiere of the first three movements of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem and in 1898 it gave the first complete performance of Verdi’s Quattro pezzi sacri (including the ‘Ave Maria’). It was also the choir for the world premieres of Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and Franz Schmidt’s oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln.
With Johannes Prinz, choir director since 1991, the Wiener Singverein entered the 21st century as a much sought after and stylistically extremely flexible concert choir. Today, the choir works regularly with internationally famous conductors. In the 2025/26 season these included Fabio Luisi, Markus Poschner, Tugan Sokhiev, Gustavo Dudamel, Paavo Järvi, Adam Fischer, Lahav Shani, Petr Popelka, Patrick Doyle, Stefan Gottfried, Jakub Hrůša, Elim Chan, Martin Haselböck, Andris Nelsons and Daniele Gatti. Its programmes have featured works by Haydn, Mahler, Bruckner, Verdi, Schumann, Berlioz and Shostakovich.
The Singverein’s artistic home is the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, and its many commitments have had a profound effect on concert programming there.
The choir also makes regular international guest appearances. In the 2025/26 season the choir appeared as guest artists with the Bamberg Symphony and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
In its recent Salzburg Festival appearances, the choir has performed under Daniel Barenboim, Kent Nagano, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Franz Welser-Möst, Christian Thielemann, Herbert Blomstedt and, most recently, Esa-Pekka Salonen.
