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Falkenbergs Motettkör is attached to Falkenberg's parish and is led by the parish's organist. The choir's task is to rehearse and perform good choral music at church services and concerts. The Motettkören is a mixed choir with about 40 singers. The largest part of the choir's repertoire consists of classical church music, but there is also music from other genres, e.g. folk music, jazz and negro spiritual.
The first appearance as Falkenbergs Motettkör took place in 1968, which can therefore be counted as the choir's "birth year", even though the predecessor "Falkenbergs Kyrkokör" had been active much earlier. The choir's first conductor was Henrik Cervin (1967-1981), who was then followed by Bengt Nilsson (1981-2000) and Elisabet Marmén (2001-2015). For shorter periods, the conductorship has also been exercised by Sven-Anders Svensson (1979-1981), Per Johansson (1993-1994), Eva Olofsson (autumn 2000) and Lars Wallenäs (2015). Since 2015, the choir's conductor is Maria Löfberg.
Since the beginning, Falkenbergs Motettkör has participated in many church services and concerts in Falkenberg and on choral trips in Sweden and abroad, e.g. in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Belgium. The choir has collaborated with many orchestras and musicians, with other choirs and with vocal soloists from London and from opera houses such as Gothenburg, Malmö and Copenhagen. The choir has (often in collaboration with the congregation's women's choir Cantica Nova) performed several of the great church musical works such as George Frideric Handel's Messiah, J.S. Bach's Weihnachts-Oratorium BWV 248 and Johannes-Passion BWV 245, J. Haydn's Creation, Felix Mendelssohn's and Requiems by W.A. Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Verdi.
The Christmas concerts are a permanent feature of the Motettkören's activities with both well-known Christmas songs and more unknown works. The choir also appears from time to time with secular music, e.g. for a number of years when sing-along concerts were held outside the Church building. At these concerts and on other occasions, the choir also likes to sing music by composers such as Hugo Alfvén, Povel Ramel, Sven Asmussen, Ted Gärdestad and others.
The choir rehearses every Wednesday during term time and participates in church services 6-10 times a year and at concerts a few times a year. The rehearsal work goes quickly and the ambitions are high. That the choir's singing is appreciated is given many proofs by listeners, visiting musicians and vocal soloists. |
