The DR Pigekoret's Christmas concerts are a crowd-puller, bringing thousands of Danes to the Concert Hall in DR Byen year after year. And even more people have to go in vain, as the demand for concert tickets is so high that there have been up to 10,000 hopefuls on the waiting list for the concerts in several years.
This year, extra people will have to miss the DR Girls' Choir's Christmas concerts due to the current corona restrictions, which only allow for about 400 people in the hall at each concert - in addition to the choir itself. Therefore, DR Koncerthuset has decided to invite audiences all over Denmark to experience the concert in a different way, namely by broadcasting the concert directly from the Concert Hall to large and small Danish cinemas - in surround sound and the highest image quality.
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You can sit back in the cinema seats and enjoy the sound and sight of the 55 young singers and their chief conductor Phillip Faber, who both conducts and plays at the concert. And you'll probably find yourself humming along when some of the well-known songs and hymns pop up during the concert.
Award-winning guest artists
It's not just DR Pigekoret and Phillip Faber you can look forward to experiencing at this year's Christmas concert. True to tradition, the choir will be joined by the children from DR Børnekoret and their conductor Susanne Wendt, as well as two guest artists who will add their personal touch to the concert.
The royal ballet dancer Ida Praetorius, who was also among the guests in Phillip Faber's version of ’Morgensang’, will be the main character in a musical story about Christmas that unfolds high above the stage in front of the Concert Hall's large organ. The choreography was created especially for the concert by Ida's brother, Tobias Praetorius, who is also a ballet dancer at Det Kgl. Theatre.
DR Pigekoret will also be joined by the young harmonica virtuoso Mathias Heise, who has won several Danish and international awards for his harmonica playing, including Kronprinsparrets Stjernedryspris and ‘New Jazz Star of the Year’ - and he has been named nothing less than world champion in chromatic harmonica playing.
The entire concert is accompanied by a classical string quartet and Phillip Faber himself at the grand piano in the Concert Hall.
A tale of Christmas and memories
The theme of the DR Pigekorets Christmas concert, which takes place on Sunday 13 December, will be Christmas as a holiday that evokes strong memories. Phillip Faber and the choir's artistic director Anne Karine Prip have organised the concert, which will revolve around the very essence of Christmas and the experiences we associate with it.
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- It's a special time we live in, and it means a lot to us that we can reach as many people as possible with this year's Christmas concert. It's important that we focus on what we can still do well, and music is one of those joys," says Phillip Faber and continues:
- Christmas songs make us feel like we belong and belong together, whether we are sitting in the concert hall, the cinema or singing them ourselves, and that has great value. It will undoubtedly be a Christmas we will never forget - and hopefully a Christmas concert that is equally unforgettable, reminding us of all the Christmases we have experienced and that we are all in the same situation, even around the Christmas tree.
Participation of the Crown Princess
The DR Girls' Choir's Christmas concert will be attended live at DR Koncerthuset by HRH The Crown Princess, patron of the choir.
In recent years, DR Pigekoret, Phillip Faber and The Crown Princess have participated in several official events in Denmark and abroad, and The Crown Princess has attended several of DR Pigekoret's concerts at DR Koncerthuset. The Crown Princess was also among the Danes who submitted a personal wish for Phillip Faber's version of ’Morgensang’ in March.
About DR Pigekoret
Since its founding in 1938, the sound of the DR Girls' Choir has been a familiar part of Danish life - from regular TV and radio programmes in everyday life to festive events like New Year's Eve, where hundreds of thousands of Danes sing in the New Year with the choir.
The common thread in DR Pigekoret's work is Danish song in all its forms, and the girls move freely between hymns, folk songs, modern compositions, pop songs and community singing.
Both at home and abroad, DR Pigekoret delights audiences with their contemporary and modern way of presenting the Danish song catalogue, and the choir often performs at official events abroad. In recent years, they have represented Denmark at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and in Strasbourg during the Danish Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In the autumn of 2019, the girls added their voices to a major Danish business promotional campaign in Paris with the Crown Prince Couple, and later they travelled to California, where DR Pigekoret and the Danish String Quartet captivated an enthusiastic American audience.
DR Pigekoret has recently added voices to the soundtrack for the TV series Wild, Wonderful Denmark and Grænseland, which was shown this spring on DR1. They have also recorded the music for a new feature film by director Anna Emma Haudal, which will premiere in Christmas 2021.
About Phillip Faber
Phillip Faber (b. 1984) is a composer and conductor trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Royal Danish Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He became chief conductor of the Danish National Girls' Choir in 2013 and has from the very beginning put his special stamp on the choir's sound and expression.
Phillip Faber is a keen communicator of classical music and singing in many contexts, and in 2017 he received the Danish Broadcasting Corporation's Language Prize for his efforts as both conductor and TV host. In the spring, Phillip became nationally known as host of Morgensang on DR1 and P2, which for more than three months brought listeners and viewers together about the Danish song catalogue while large parts of society were shut down. This autumn, Phillip will be appearing on TV in, among other things, Den klassiske Musikquiz (DR2), and this month his book Den danske sang will be published by Politikens Forlag.