Chorus Egrensis
The Chorus Egrensis choir is a mixed choir that was established in 2000 in Aš, which is situated in the most western part of the Czech Republic. It follows in the footsteps of the former choir Tosta Aš.
The choir’s members come from the whole region. To the regular Monday practice sessions singers from Aš are joined by members travelling from nearby towns and villages such as Cheb, Hazlov, Hranice, Františkovy Lázně, Pomezí and Trojmezí.
Our practice sessions are better descibed as joyful gatherings whereby we sing together for pure love of music and having fun together and we aim to pass this cheery mood onto our audiance during our concerts. We have sung at masses and we have had concerts in churches, community centres and in the open air. We regularily take part in Advent and Christmas concerts and have featured at various festivals. Furthermore we cooperate with many other well known and acclaimed artists, musicians and other choirs. We also partake and are coorganisers of a cross border project „Three lands singing“ during which a choirs from Rehau (Bavaria), Oelsnitz (Saxony) and Aš (Czech Republic) hold an annual concert since 1990. For this all three choirs have been awarded the main award from Euregion Egrensis in 2008.
The Chorus Egrensis is active locally and in nearby towns and villages but we have also travelled to various part of the Czech Republic and abroad as well. Each year we tour around the Czech Republicr or other European Countries. One of our most recent sucessses is our presence at the 36th International festival of choir music in Preveza in Greece in 2017 where we have won a bronze medal in both competitions in which we took part. In additon to all our concerts and performances we meet up for numerus practice workshops throughout the year. In 2010 we have recorded and published a CD celebrating our ten year anniversary and then we recorded another CD in the summer of 2019 on the 20th anniversary.
The founder of the choir, Mrs. Alexandra Míčková Benešová, has also been it’s conductor from the start. She is a graduate of the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague and has also received a degrese in Music and Choir Conducting at the Charles University in Prague.
The repertoire consists of church music, folk music, spirituals, gospels or populár music and it encompasses music from the renessaince up to modern era. Just to mention some of them: we regullarly sing „Czech Christmas Mass“ from J.J.Ryba, Mozart‘s „Requiem“ or „Aida“ by G. Verdi.
How Chorus Egrensis was born
The choir CHORUS EGRENSIS was established in 2000 it is located in the Karlovy Vary region of the Czech Republic. It follows up on the work of its predecessor choir TOSTA AŠ, which was established in 1953 by Mr. Vladimír Štěpán. The first members of theTOSTA AŠ choir mostly came from another local choir whose name is unknown but whose conductor Franz Havlas had to suddenly leave the choir for political reasons.
In 1975 singers from a former ŠPALÍČEK CHEB joint TOSTA AŠ as their choir came to an end because their choirmaster Mr. Miroslav Mayer was not allowed for political reasons to maintain this poisiton. In the 90’s group of singers from nearby Hranice also joined the choir. The founder of TOSTA AŠ, Mr.Vladimír Štěpán, lead and conducted the choir for the whole period i.e. 48 years and during this time the choir became well recognised in the whole country. In the year 2000 Mr. Štěpán celebrated his 70 birthday and he decided to leave his position as a conductor, he retired and the choir came to an end.
In the same year Ms. Alexandra Míčková Benešova contacted the members of the former choir and she has decided to establish a new choir which consisted of some of previous TOSTA AŠ singers together with some new members.
The new choir CHORUS EGRENSIS was officially established on the 4th of September 2000 and as of today it has around 30 members.