Centre for Choral Pedagogy

The primary focus of the centre is research in the area of choral pedagogy. In recent years, Heike Henning, together with her assistant Julia Vigl, has conducted three extensive studies among choral singers and conductors. The results of the research have been documented in various publications. In autumn 2020, the conference proceedings of the symposium "Lebenslanges Musizieren" were published in the Innsbruck series "Perspektiven zur Musikpädagogik".

In addition to theory-based research, the second major focus of ZECHOF is on choral pedagogy in practice. The wide variety of event formats scheduled by the centre are aimed not only professional choir educators and teachers, but also students and interested laypeople. With this in mind, several formats were launched in winter 2020, such as the online living room choir (Openchoir). In addition to these smaller workshops or lectures, ZECHOF also organises large symposia that invite people with common interests to come together for a weekend to explore a specific aspect or focus. These symposia take place both online and in-person at the Haus der Musik in Innsbruck.

Student members of staff: 
Sarah Oberhuber, Katharina Streicher, Stefanie Granegger, Sara Dallinger, Magdalena Zorn, Maria Ploner

Open Choir is a community singing project initiated by ZECHOF in the tradition of community music. It is an inclusive, intercultural and intergenerational project which is open to all and does not require regular commitment from participants.

In addition to being a low-threshold opportunity for choral singing, Open Choir aims to teach, pass on, maintain and expand a canon of choral repertoire. When selecting songs and the creating the respective programme, care is taken to mix traditional and well-known songs with foreign-language, new and unfamiliar songs. 

At previous Open Choir events (with the exception of the first Open Choir on December 7, 2020, which incorporated into a three-part workshop series on The Intelligent Choir) musical accompaniment has been provided by Peter Schindler on the piano. The choir's repertoire is selected by Heike Henning, who also moderates the event, interspersing the musical contributions with information about the songs and their background.

So far, up to 100 participants have taken part in each event, from all over the German-speaking area and sometime from further afield. In the future, the Open Choir is to be offered → live on site, → virtually as before → and/or hybrid (with people on site as well as online). Musical encounters are to be made possible in different spaces.