Copyright © 2008 Groninger kinder en Jeugdkoor
About us
The Groninger Kinder- & Jeugdkoor consists of two choirs: a children's choir and a youth choir. Boys and girls are allowed to audition for the children's choir from the age of 8 to 13 years. The youth choir is for young people aged 13 to 18. Most of our members live in or near the beautiful city of Groningen, located in the Northern part of The Netherlands.The children's choir was founded in 1976 and the youth choir in 1990. The children's choir repertoire includes classical compositions (Matthäus Passion by J.S. Bach, Une cantate de Noël by Arthur Honegger, Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, the opera Brundibár by Hans Krása) as well as modern songs & musicals (Annie, Oliver, The Lion King). In 2003 the children's choir won the first price in its category at the Dutch National Children's Choir Festival.
The youth choir participated in the Internationale Festival Adventsingen in Vienna, the Hamburger Festival "Kinder singen für Kinder" and the Zang- en Muziekfestival in Schiermonnikoog, where it won the second price. In 2006 the choir participated in the International Festival of Advent and Christmas music in Prague where it won silver. The choir's classical repertoire includes A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten and Hodie, a Christmas Cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams as well as choral music from Antonin Dvorak and Sergei Rachmaninov. The youth choir also enjoys working on modern productions. Musicals like Les Misérables, Cats, West Side Story and Grease are the young singers' favorites. The famous young Dutch composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven invited the youth choir to do the choral parts of the experimental La Nuit, ce n'est pas un chocolat.
Loes Jeltes is the conductor of both choirs since 1988. She received a Royal decoration for her outstanding work in choral music education in 2004. Japke Hartog joined her in 2006 as assistent conductor.
You will find a complete listing of our concert performances in the Dutch part of this site. Via the item concerts in the menu left we made a selection of our concerts with a english description.
In case you would like to contact us: please click at the menu item contact in order to find our contact details.