The Choir of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra has been directed by Rolf Beck since its founding in 1983. The choir’s principal task since its founding has been collaboration with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra on choral-orchestral projects – and this has remained its main task up to the present day. Outside these activities, the ensemble’s repertoire includes sacred and secular a cappella literature from Monteverdi to Hindemith, from Bach and Handel to Arvo Pärt. The great choral oratorios of Handel to Mendelssohn and Brahms form a further focal point of the choir’s work. Beside numerous concerts in Germany, the ensemble has toured Belgium, France, Luxemburg, Italy, Spain, Poland, Japan, South America, Russia and Israel. The Choir has also made highly successful guest appearances at numerous festivals, including Prague Spring, the International Bruckner Festival in Linz, the Strassburg Festival, the Mozart Festival in Würzburg, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Beethoven Festival in Krakow. The choir has worked on a regular basis with Giuseppe Sinopoli, who worked with the choir in Bamberg and also invited the ensemble to perform with his Italian orchestras, including those in Rome and Taormina. Of equal importance were the performances with the former conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Horst Stein, who prepared a large Reger cycle with choir and orchestra, among other works. In the choral-symphonic domain, the choir has also worked with conductors such as Ferdinand Leitner, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Roger Norrington, Adam Fischer, Marcello Viotti and Ingo Metzmacher. High points of the past few years were the invitations from James Levine and the Munich Philharmonic to perform Arnold Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder and Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Important CDs of the choir include Rossini's Petite Messe solennelle, Mendelssohn's works for choir and Orchestra, E.T.A. Hoffmann's Miserere, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Mahler's second symphony.