The Bilbao Choral Society (Sociedad Coral de Bilbao) is an association devoted to fostering musical activity. Founded in 1886 under the name "Orfeón Bilbaíno", the Bilbao

Bilbao

Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

 Choir (in Basque

Basque language

Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...

 known as "Bilboko Koral Elkartea") is a non-profit cultural association declared "of General Interest" by the Basque Autonomous Government. Nowadays it comprises three adult choirs and a conservatory choir

During its long life, the Society has been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, both in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 and abroad, such as the Medal of Merit in the Beautiful Arts on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.

The Mixed Choir

The senior Choir started in 1886 with Choirmaster Cleto Zabala, featuring only male voices. A few years later women were admitted. Throughout the choir's long career, it has been conducted by the following masters: Aureliano Valle, Jesús Guridi

Jesús Guridi

Jesús Guridi Bidaola was a Spanish Basque composer, and is a key player in the Spanish and Basque music of the twentieth century. His style fits into what we might call the late romantic stamp, directly inherited from Wagner, and with a strong influence from the Basque culture...

, Arturo Inchausti, Timoteo Urrengoechea, J. M. Olaizola, Modesto Arana, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is a Spanish conductor and composer.Frühbeck studied violin, piano, and composition at the conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid...

, Juan Cordero, Urbano Ruiz Laorden, Julen Ezkurra, Gorka Sierra, Iñaki Moreno, Joan Cabero and, since September 2010, by Julio Gergely.

The Choir specialises in the great Symphonic-choral repertoire and has worked with many important conductors, namely: Fernández Arbós, Pérez Casas, Wladimir Golscham, Jesús Arámbarri, Lamote de Grignon, Ataúlfo Argenta, Jascha Horenstein

Jascha Horenstein

Jascha Horenstein was an American conductor.Horenstein was born in Kiev, Russian Empire , into a well-to-do Jewish family; his mother came from an Austrian rabbinical family and his father was Russian....

, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Odón Alonso, Antoni Ros Marbá, Miguel Angel Gómez Martínez, Moshe Atzmon, Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...

, Theo Alcántara, Michel Plasson

Michel Plasson

Michel Plasson is a French conductor.Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. He studied briefly in the United States, including time with Charles Münch...

, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Jan Lathan-Koenig, Arturo Tamayo, Aldo Ceccato, Hans Graf, Juanjo Mena

Juanjo Mena

Juanjo Mena is a Spanish conductor. His brother Carlos is a countertenor and his sister Elena is a research chemist....

, Gianandrea Noseda

Gianandrea Noseda

Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conductor. He studied piano, composition and conducting in Milan. He furthered his conducting studies with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev....

, Elio Boncompagni, Michaël Schönwadt, Georges Prêtre

Georges Prêtre

- Biography :He was born in Waziers , and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting under André Cluytens among others at the Conservatoire de Paris. Amongst his early musical interests were jazz and trumpet. After graduating, he conducted in a...

, Alexander Rahbari, John Nelson

John Nelson (conductor)

John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. Nelson studied at Wheaton College, and later at the Juilliard School of Music with Jean Morel ....

, Josep Pons

Josep Pons

Josep Pons is a Spanish conductor. He is the current conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra.-External links:**...

, Jerzy Semkow

Jerzy Semkow

Jerzy Semkow is a Polish conductor. He has served as music director of the Saint Louis Symphony, principal conductor of the Royal Danish Opera and the Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen, Music Advisor and Principal Conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic, Music Director of the Orchestra of...

, Alexandre Dmitriev, Yutaka Sado, Martin Haselböck

Martin Haselböck

Martin Haselböck is the musical director of Musica Angelica in Santa Monica, California, and the musical director and founder of the Orchester Wiener Akademie. He is also a professor at the University of Vienna, where he teaches organ.-External links:...

, Michiyoshi Inoue and Chistoph Spering.

The Bilbao Choir regularly takes part in Stage Productions of operas and zarzuela

Zarzuela

Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...

s and even representations of works like Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

's "Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien

Le martyre de Saint Sébastien

Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, L 124 is a musical work by the French composer Claude Debussy.Written in 1911, the work—a five-act musical mystery play on the subject of Saint Sebastian -- was produced in collaboration with Gabriele d'Annunzio and designed as a vehicle for Ida Rubinstein...

", together with the avant-garde stage company La Fura dels Baus

La Fura dels Baus

La Fura dels Baus is a Catalan theatrical group founded in 1979 in Barcelona, known for their urban theatre, use of unusual settings and blurring of the boundaries between audience and actor. "La Fura dels Baus" in Catalan means "vermin from the sewers"....

.

The work of the Society also includes choral works and operas of composers such as Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis is one of the most renowned Greek songwriters and composers. Internationally, he is probably best known for his songs and for his scores for the films Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico .Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an...

 (Medea

Medea

Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...

, 1990; premiered at the Arriaga Theatre in Bilbao) and Francisco Escudero ("Gernika", opera; presented in Concert version)).
The Choir has premiered in Spain such works as Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

's "Ein Deutsches Requiem

Ein deutsches Requiem

A German Requiem, To Words of the Holy Scriptures, Op. 45 by Johannes Brahms, is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, and a soprano and a baritone soloist, composed between 1865 and 1868. It comprises seven movements, which together last 65 to 80 minutes, making this work Brahms's longest...

", Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...

", Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's "Requiem

Requiem

A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...

", Gyorgy Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

's "Requiem

Requiem

A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...

", Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's "Elijah" or Vaughan-Williams' "Hodie

Hodie

Hodie is a cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Composed between 1953 and 1954, it is the composer's last major choral-orchestral composition, and was premiered under his baton at Worcester Cathedral, as part of the Three Choirs Festival, on September 8, 1954. The piece is dedicated to Herbert...

". A female section of the choir presented in the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum atrium Mike Oldfield

Mike Oldfield

Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...

's "Music of the Spheres

Music of the Spheres (Mike Oldfield album)

Music of the Spheres is an album by English musician Mike Oldfield, released in the United Kingdom on 17 March 2008. New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra is the featured vocalist on "On My Heart", and the album also features Chinese pianist Lang Lang on six tracks.The album, Oldfield's second album...

"

Recordings

Recent recordings, mostly of stage music include "Goyescas

Goyescas

Goyescas, Op. 11, subtitled Los majos enamorados , is a piano suite written in 1911 by Spanish composer Enrique Granados. This piano suite is usually considered Granados's crowning creation and was inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya, although the piano pieces have not been authoritatively...

", opera by Enric Granados; Puccini's "Turandot

Turandot

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...

", Francisco Escudero's "Gernika", as well as Jesús Guridi's "Amaya" and "El Caserío".

The Euskeria Choir

The Euskeria Choir is the junior choir of the society. It is currently conducted by Urko Sangroniz.

The Conservatory Choir

The Conservatory Choir, or Children Choir, was founded in 1984 by Gorka Sierra. José Luis Ormazabal has been chorus master since 1995. The Choir has performed all over Spain, including the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, with Mahler's 8th Symphony

Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is often performed with fewer than a...

. Their most relevant recording includes works by Spanish composers Antón García Abril

Antón García Abril

Antón García Abril is a Spanish composer and musician. In 1997 Plácido Domingo created the role of Lucero in his Divinas Palabras at the Teatro Real in Madrid.-Biography:...

 and Jesús Guridi

Jesús Guridi

Jesús Guridi Bidaola was a Spanish Basque composer, and is a key player in the Spanish and Basque music of the twentieth century. His style fits into what we might call the late romantic stamp, directly inherited from Wagner, and with a strong influence from the Basque culture...

.