Programmatically, approximately 75 singers of the accomplished adult choir enjoy a diverse choral repertoire, which, in addition to classical vocal polyphony and representative choral/orchestral works (Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc.), focuses particularly on 20th-century literature (e.g., Arvo Pärt “Missa Sillabica,” Benjamin Britten “Rejoice in the Lamb,” Igor Stravinsky “Psalm Symphony,” Carl Orff “Carmina Burana,” Leonard Bernstein “Chichester Psalms”). The choir is not shy about exploring new genres: whether through months-long workshops and concerts with the African American gospel choir director Adrienne Morgan-Hammond from New York, or with tenor Aron Proujanski, leading to an in-depth exploration of Jewish music, or the collaboration with Iraqi (Saad Thamir), Turkish (Erdal Aslan), and Japanese (Masahiro Miwa) composers with world premieres. The choir has also participated in several silent film concerts.
The choir gained regional recognition through two concerts initiated by Wilfried Kaets, as part of the official Expo 2000 program, where Jewish, Islamic, and Christian musicians engaged in dialogue. This project was re-presented in an expanded form in 2016 with numerous intercultural musicians as part of the renowned “Acht Brücken” Festival for Contemporary Music in Cologne (WDR recording) and at the Gasometer Oberhausen.
The choir’s diverse activities include numerous concerts (e.g., at cathedrals in Aachen, Trier, and Cologne) and concert tours (e.g., Paris, Rome, Vienna, London, and most recently, Budapest in 2017), collaborations with professional orchestras (e.g., the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne), partnerships with other choirs, and CD productions. In 1999, WDR produced a 30-minute documentary film about the choir.