Chorwerk Ruhr

Chorwerk Ruhr is a German choir, founded in 1999 in Bochum. Under the artistic direction of Frieder Bernius, they specialised in Baroque music. Since 2011, Florian Helgath has been the artistic director and conductor of the choir, and they have focused more on contemporary choral music, but always in the context of music history.

The vocal ensemble ChorWerk Ruhr was founded by KulturRuhr GmbH, the Ruhr regional administration and the city of Essen, and the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia. The artistic director and conductor was co-founder Professor Frieder Bernius. He had a preference for Baroque music, but the choir's repertoire ranged from early homophony and polyphony, musica antiqua, to all the well-known oratorios. Bernius led the choir until 2003. After his departure, conductors such as Reinhard Goebel, Peter Neumann, Robin Gritton, Sylvain Cambreling and Hans Zender took over the leadership for individual projects. Only in 2008 did Rupert Huber assume the position of artistic director.

In November 2011, conductor Florian Helgath took over the artistic direction. He shifted the choir's focus more towards contemporary choral music, which he placed in the context of the musical past. With him, the choir performed music by Johann Sebastian Bach to Hans Zender, and from Claudio Monteverdi to Wolfgang Rihm.