Hans Christoph Becker-Foss

Hans Christoph Becker- Foss ( born 1949 in Hoexter ) is a German organist and choirmaster.

Biography

Hans Christoph Becker- Foss, born in 1949, grew up in a church family of musicians. After high school he studied church music at today's University of the Arts Bremen. His teachers were there Hans Heintze and Erich Ehlers (organ ) and Walter Bohle and Birgid of Rohden ( piano). While still a student, he attended courses by Hans Richter - Haaser (piano), Gustav Leonhardt (harpsichord ), Nikolaus Harnoncourt ( early music performance practice ) and Guy Bovet (organ improvisation and interpretation of Old French organ music). Since then, organ courses led him to Christoph Bossert, Ludger Lohmann, Michael Radulescu, Daniel Roth, Roman Summereder and Wolfgang Zerer.

From 1973 headed Becker- Foss Hastedter the Kantorei in Bremen, in 1979, he joined a church musician at the Market Church St. Nicolai Hameln, and has also Kreiskantor for the church district of Hamelin- Pyrmont. In 1992 he became the musical director of the Göttingen vocal ensembles. In 1989 he founded, together with Cantor Christiane Klein ( bottom Werder ) the music weeks Weser mountain country; Becker- Foss has since been its artistic director.

Since 1980 he has taught organ class at the University of Music, Drama and Media Hanover, where he was appointed professor in 1993 and taught since 2004 also the subject organ customer. He gives courses for Organ, basso and early music performance practice. He also performs the function of an organ expert.

Becker- Foss pursues an international career as an organist, harpsichordist and conductor. In the trio he joined since 1993 in particular together with Gotthold Schwarz ( baritone) and Siegfried Pank (viola da gamba ). Together with the church musician and theologian Karl Wurm he devotes himself, ambiance, in collaboration with the label, a CD series with recordings of important organs of Lower Saxony. Thus arose specific programmatic concepts at the organ by Andreas Schweimb in Brevörde and that of Jürgen Ahrend to St. Servatius in Duderstadt.

For his recording of the Apparatus musico - organisticus by Georg Muffat Hans Christoph Becker- Foss in 2001 with the Prize of the German Record Critics' Award ( leaderboard ) was excellent.

Discography (selection)

As organist

• Georg Muffat: Apparatus musico - organisticus. Hans Christoph Becker- Foss ( Beckerath / Goll Organ of the Market Church in Hameln ) and Karl Wurm (texts to present as universal harmony ). 2 CDs. Ambiente 2000.
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Little Organ Book. Hans Christoph Becker- Foss ( Beckerath / Goll Organ of the Market Church in Hameln ). Ambiente, 2001.
• God, gods and planets. Works by Johann Pachelbel, Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach. Hans Christoph Becker- Foss and Karl Wurm (JC Müller organ in Welsede and Schweimb organ in Brevörde ). 2 CDs. Ambiente 2002.
• In Lamentatione Jubilatio Dei - praise and action in baroque musical settings. Works by Johann Rose Müller, Jan Dismas Zelenka and others. Gotthold Schwarz (baritone ), Siegfried Pank (viola da gamba ) and Hans Christoph Becker- Foss (organ and harpsichord). CD. Surround sound, 2005.
• Archetypes - Images and Icons in the world of organ music. Works of Heinrich Scheidemann ( Magnificat V), Dietrich Buxtehude ( chorale fantasias ), Pierre du Mage, Johann Sebastian Bach ( Preludes and Fugues BWV 544, 547 and 548), Cesar Franck ( Trois chant ), Charles -Marie Widor ( Symphony II) Walter Kraft ( triptych St. Michael ) and György Ligeti ( volumes). Hans Christoph Becker- Foss and Karl Wurm ( Ahrend organ at St. Servatius in Duderstadt and Beckerath / Goll Organ of the Market Church in Hameln ). 4 CDs. Ambiente 2007.
• Johann Sebastian Bach: The Musical Offering and Art of Fugue. In: Numbers - in Duderstadt Savings Bank and in the late works of Bach. Hans Christoph Becker- Foss and Karl Wurm (harpsichord by Rainer shooter Italian model / Harpsichord by Martin- Christian Schmidt after Johann Heinrich Gräbner, Dresden 1739 / Ahrend organ at St. Servatius in Duderstadt ), Dorothee Art ( Flauto traverso ), Annegret Siedel (baroque violin), Daniela Wartenberg (baroque cello). CD. Ambiente, 2008.
• Nicolaus Bruhns: Complete Organ Works. As well as works by Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach. Hans Christoph Becker- Foss and Karl Wurm (YES Berner / M. Hillebrand organ of the collegiate church Fischbeck ). CD. Ambiente, 2009.