Friedrich Lessky was born in 1934. After high school he got a degree in musical pedagogy, choir conducting and organ at the Vienna Academy for Music and Figurative Arts, as well as in history and musicology at Vienna University. From 1964 to 2000, he was professor and later director of the music school Wiener Musikgymnasium and assistant teacher at the department of music and figurative arts at the Vienna University. In 1957 with a students’ choir from Vienna, he won a first prize at the international choir competition in Arezzo. Friedrich Lessky founded in 1968 the Chamber Choir of the Vienna Music School (today: Friedrich-Lessky-Choir). With this choir he has obtained outstanding placings in many international competitions and has made more than 40 concert tours travelling to almost all European countries as well as to North and South America. For ten years he has been artistic director of the well known Wiener Singakademie. His productions have been broadcasted in various radio and TV programmes as well as in other registrations. Friedrich Lessky is also founder and artistic director of the Viennese international choir competition "Franz Schubert", and he is vice president of the Schubert-Gesellschaft Wien-Lichtental. Friedrich Lessky is regularly invited to be a member of the juries at international choir competitions. Due to his activity in the field of choir music, Friedrich Lessky has been awarded important prizes, among others the medal of merit of the Austrian Republic Großes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich.

Ralf Eisenbeiß was born in 1952 in Zeulenroda. After his secondary school examination he studied pedagogy, German philology and musical education. He received his PhD in 1979 at the Pedagogical University of Zwickau. From 1978 to 1981, he studied choir and orchestra conducting at the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Weimar.

Ralf Eisenbeiß was working as the director of the choral department at the Pedagogical University in Zwickau and appointed professor for choir conducting and choral singing in 1987. He was conductor of the renowned Pedagogical University Zwickau Choir. With his choir he performed a wide repertoire of compositions for a cappella choirs and with orchestra, too. Under his direction the choir won numerous prizes at national and international choir competitions.

Ralf Eisenbeiß was lecturer at the central seminar for choral conductors in Berlin and organized numerous workshops himself. He often appears as guest conductor at home and abroad. Since almost 30 years he works as artistic director of INTERKULTUR. Ralf Eisenbeiß is founder of the Int. Robert Schumann Choir Competition in Zwickau and one of the founders of the World Choir Games. Since 1992 he was responsible for more than 150 international competitions of INTERKULTUR in Germany, Italy, Korea, Indonesia, China, Austria, Spain, USA and other countries. Ralf Eisenbeiß is very often invited as a juror in national and other international choir competitions all over the world.

- in memoriam -

Christian Ljunggren was born in 1942. He studied music at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm as well as musicology and theology at the University of Uppsala. For many years he worked at the Music Department of the Swedish National Broadcasting Company, and was responsible for the presentation and programming regarding music.

He was the conductor of the Adolf Fredrik Madrigal Choir since their foundation (1965 and 1974). He was the first President of the Swedish Choral Directors Association (1986 – 1998) and President of KÖRSAM, the joint committee of the Swedish choral organisations (1997 – 2004). From 1997-1999  he worked for the of IFCM, the International Federation for Choral Music, as the Secretary General from 1997-1999 and as a liaison officer (until 2005).

He was one of the Artistic Directors of INTERKULTUR and the Artistic Director of the World Choir Games. Due to his engagement as a clinician for seminars and workshops around the world and having built up the INTERKULTUR series of seminars in China the Swede gained growing recognition since 2003.

Christian Ljunggren has written numerous articles in Swedish and international magazines and was also a keen arranger of choral music.

Christiane Fischer was born 1969 in Ravensburg, Germany. She studied singing, oboe, and school-music at the School of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart and completed a postgraduate study at the School of Opera in Stuttgart.

At the Federal Academy for Musical Youth Education in Trossingen, Christiane Fischer obtained another postgraduate degree in Children’s Choral Conducting. In 2010, she successfully completed an 18-month Master Class for choral conducting under the instruction of Professor Erwin Ortner from Vienna.

Until 2005, Christiane Fischer was vocal coach, singing teacher, head of the department, and head of the Children and Youth Choir Heidelberg at the Music and Singing School Heidelberg. She also was the Artistic Director of the Franconian Children’s Choir. The same year, she obtained a lectureship at the Conservatory in Vienna.

In 2006, Christiane Fischer took over the direction of the School of Singing in Vienna and founded the children and youths choirs of Vienna’s School of Music.

She is a consultant for trainings at pedagogical universities and at the Austrian Music Schools, juror at singing and choral competitions and is working on committees on the subject of voice training and choral conducting with children and teenagers.

This is her second juror assignment for an INTERKULTUR choir competition.

Peter Habermann received his first musical education as a member of the Dresden Kreuzchor. This was followed by a course of Vocal Studies in Dresden which he passed with a First Class Honours degree to be a singing teacher. Since 1984, he has been teaching at the Landesgymnasium für Musik Wernigerode. His scope of work covers both the field of vocal training and the choral education of this institution’s students.

For many years, he acted as a Deputy Artistic Director of the Rundfunkjugendchor Wernigerode with Friedrich Krell. Later, he led the institution’s Children Choir with great success before he became Artistic Director of the Rundfunkjugendchor in 1996, a responsibility that he held until 2004 and has been holding again from 2008 until today.

His work with this internationally renowned ensemble has been rewarded with numerous prizes, and has resulted in many CD recordings as well as concert tours both at home and abroad.

In 2003, he founded the Wernigerode Chamber Choir, a project choir comprising former Rundfunkjugendchor members which he led until 2010. He is also committed to amateur music: for 10 years, he conducted the men’s choir of the village Drübeck. Peter Habermann is an active singer, speaker and juror for INTERKULTUR events and the German Choral Contest.

Andris Veismanis is the Conductor of the opera house and Associate Professor at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. He is also the Artistic Director of the chamber choir Ave Sol and the Vidzeme Chamber Orchestra. Andris Veismanis graduated from the Choir Conducting Department of the J. Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in the class of Prof. Imants Kokars, and received his Master’s degree from the class of Prof. Jānis Dūmiņš. He studied symphonic and opera conducting with Prof. Yuri Simonov and specialized in baroque music under William Christie. From 1989 to 1997, he toured with Sacrum, a chamber choir he founded, which received the Grand Prix in an international competition in Budapest for a recording of Franz Liszt’s Via crucis. From 1997 to 2006, he served as Principal Chorus Master at the Latvian National Opera, earning the Great Music Award for productions of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Handel’s Alcina. The conductor has collaborated with many excellent soloists including Elīna Garanča and Montserrat Caballé all around the world. He has conducted premieres of works by many Latvian composers and recorded albums with leading musicians from the Baltic states. Furthermore, he has collaborated with various orchestras, including the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and Kremerata Baltica. Andris Veismanis has received the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music Annual Award 2021 for outstanding pedagogical and creative work.