© Martin Förster

Albrecht Koch

As an organist and conductor, Albrecht Koch is one of the most distinguished personalities in Saxon church music. As a musician as well as the artistic director of the Silbermann Days, he inspires time and again with gripping interpretations, impressive programmes and great artistic creativity. Born in Dresden in 1976, Koch gained important musical experience as a child in the Dresden Kreuzchor. His formative teachers during his studies at the Leipzig Academy of Music included Arvid Gast, Martin Schmeding and Morten Schuldt-Jensen. He received important impulses in courses with personalities such as Roy Goodman, Ewald Koiman, Lars-Ulrik Mortensen and Hans Fagius. Since 2008, Albrecht Koch has been cathedral cantor and organist in Freiberg/Saxony, where he is entrusted with the Silbermann organ from 1714, one of the most important organs of the Baroque period. At Freiberg Cathedral he conducts numerous choirs such as the Cathedral Choir, the Cathedral Choir, the Cathedral Children's Choir, which he founded, and the Youth Choir at Freiberg Cathedral. With his ensembles, he not only organises performances of the great oratorios and passions of Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, but also receives widespread recognition for his exploration and revival of forgotten works from Saxony's musical history. He is also committed to contemporary music, which is reflected in numerous commissioned compositions and world premieres for organ, as well as choir and orchestra. Together with the ensemble chordae freybergenses, he also traces the original sound of the Renaissance, which has been preserved to this day with the angelic instruments from 1594 in the Wettin burial chamber in Freiberg Cathedral. In addition to his work in Freiberg, Albrecht Koch is an internationally respected artist. He has performed at the Bach Festival Leipzig, the Dresden Music Festival, the Holland Organ Festival, the Toulouse les Orgues Festival and the Madeira Organ Festival. Concert tours have taken him not only throughout Germany but also to numerous European countries and several times to Australia. Radio, CD and film productions, including nominations for the German Record Critics' Prize, paint a picture of his work. Since 2022, Albrecht Koch has been President of the Saxon Cultural Senate, the cultural advisory body of the Saxon state government. Since 2010, he has chaired the GottfriedSilbermann-Gesellschaft e.V. and is also the artistic director of the renowned Silbermann Days and the International Gottfried Silbermann Organ Competition. He represents the city of Freiberg in the European Cities of Historical Organs (ECHO) association. The Free State of Saxony awarded him the Saxon Constitutional Medal in 2022 for his many artistic and social achievements.