conductor
Concert Vita
Johannes Honecker is a young conductor from Cologne. In September 2023, he graduated with top marks in the Master of Music Choral Conducting at the Cologne Conservatory of Music and Dance (HfMT). For several years he has been known as a freelance choir conductor in West Germany.
Born in Aachen, he initially studied to become a secondary school teacher in music and maths before deciding to deepen his music studies with a bachelor's degree in choral conducting with Prof Peter Dijkstra. In his master's degree he learned from Prof Florian Helgath at the Cologne Conservatory of Music and Dance. He received further inspiration from Georg Grün, Frieder Bernius, Zoltán Pad, Michael Brille, Denis Rouger, Nicolas Fink and Daniel Reuss, among others.
Regular engagements as a conductor have taken him to various ensembles, including Chorwerk Ruhr, the vocal ensemble and chamber choir of the HfMT Cologne, the Zürcher Singakademie, Studium Chorale Maastricht, MUSA [NL] and the WDR Rundfunkchor. Early music can be found in his repertoire as well as contemporary music. In October 2021, he prepared Chorwerk Ruhr for the world premiere of the oratorio The Red Death by Francesco Filidei, which was written for the 100th Donaueschinger Musiktage für Neue Musik. In September 2022, he conducted the Rheinische Kantorei and das kleine Konzert with four world premieres by young composers at the Knechtsteden Early Music Festival. He has been the artistic director of the tonart concert choir in Bergisch Gladbach since 2017. With the Madrigalchor Aachen, which he has directed since January 2018, he has played a key role in the organization and development of the International Chorbiennale Aachen. From 2021 to 2023, he worked in the choral direction team at Aachen City Theater as répétiteur and choirmaster for the opera choir. In April 2023, he was accepted into the Forum Conducting as a scholarship holder of the German Music Council.