About the festival

Festival of Sacred Music Sumava-Bayerischer Wald is a non-competition meeting of non-professional singing choirs, instrumental ensembles and friends of choral singing, established in 1997 by the Association for vocal and chamber music Laetitia. Nowadays, the festival is organized by Collegium for Sacred Music Klatovy . in collaboration with Czech Choirs Association (Unie českých pěveckých sborů). It takes place annually in late May in Klatovy and its surroundings, reaching meaningfully the nearby areas of Bavaria (Germany). Main purpose of the festival is to animate selected churches near the Czech-Bavarian border and to contribute to meeting and mutual over-the-frontier dialogue in the field of sacred music.

This non-commercial annual festival takes place in May in different places mainly of Šumava – Bavarian Forest region on both sides of the Czech-German frontier. During last few years, the concerts spread into other regions, Carlsbad region and even Prague. However the Czech-Bavarian border region is still the most convenient place for this international European festival which guarantees interesting meetings of musicians from the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary and other European countries.

The musical content of this festival is Czech and European sacred music that ranges from Gregorian chant to contemporary music, from liturgical music to pieces more suitable for concert performing. The grand finale of this festival is a concert of all participating choirs and ensembles that perform at least one piece all together with a professional orchestra. There are usually about 150 participating musicians.

The 14th year of this festival takes place on 14th May – 6th June 2010, the final choir meeting is on 4th-6th June. The final festival concert takes place in the Virgin Mary Archdean church in Klatovy on Saturday 5th June 2010. One of the supreme cantata-like work of German Romanticism, Johannes Brahms´ (1833-1897) “Ein deutsches Requiem“,op. 45 (1868) will be performed under the conductor´s baton of Florian Erdl, conductor of the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra.