Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krell © INTERKULTUR

Mourning for Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krell

Co-founder of the Johannes Brahms Choir Festival passed away

Obituary

INTERKULTUR mourns the loss of a good friend and long-time companion: Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krell, Honorary Artistic President and co-founder of the Johannes Brahms Choir Festival & Competition in Wernigerode, died on October 21, 2020 at the age of 92. 

Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krell, pioneer of choral art in the former German Democratic Republic and later in the reunited Germany, was the founder and for 45 years Artistic Director of the Rundfunkjugendchor Wernigerode (Radio Youth Choir Wernigerode), which he founded in 1951 at the Landesmusikgymnasium Wernigerode (at that time Extended Secondary School "Gerhart Hauptmann") and which soon after became nationally and internationally renowned. 

In the 1990s he successfully participated several times with the Rundfunkjugendchor Wernigerode in the newly founded choir competitions of INTERKULTUR in Budapest and Riva del Garda, and in 2000 he also took part in the 1st Choir Olympics, now the World Choir Games, in Linz.  

And so it is also due to Friedrich Krell's initiative that the former Lord Mayor of Wernigerode, Ludwig Hofmann, and INTERKULTUR President Günter Titsch came together in the 1990s to establish a regular choir competition of international standing in the "colorful city on the Harz mountains": The International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival & Competition took place in Wernigerode for the first time in 1999 and since then has developed into one of INTERKULTUR's most beautiful and popular choral events, regularly attracting choirs from all continents to the culturally rich city in the Harz region. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the choir festival in 2017, the then 89-year-old Friedrich Krell did not miss the chance to be part of the jury for the Grand Prize Competition as Honorary Artistic President of the festival.  
 
The news of his death was received by INTERKULTUR with great sadness and dismay. Prof. Dr. Krell's memory will be preserved especially at the International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival & Competition in Wernigerode. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Andrea, his relatives and friends in this difficult time.

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