Klaus-Jürgen Etzold

Prof. Klaus-Jürgen Etzold (*1959) is the artistic director and conductor of the Junges Vokalensemble Hannover, which he himself founded in 1981. He is a teacher at the Matthias-Claudius-Gymnasium, a grammar school, at Gehrden, and at the same time is responsible for the education of new music teachers for grammar schools in the Hanover region (Studienseminar Hannover II). In addition, he holds an honorary professorship in music education at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien at Hanover. Between 1978 and 1986 he was the assistant to Prof. Heinz Hennig at the Knabenchor Hannover, and in 1980 he was one of the co-founders of the town’s Orlando di Lasso ensemble, with which he continued to sing until 1985. He is active as an adjudicator at choir and voice competitions, and gives seminars in conducting both at home and abroad, for example in Zagreb/Croatia (1999–2002), Madagascar (2008 and 2009), and in Venezuela (2012). He is a member of the board for choirs at the Deutscher Musikrat as well as an artistic advisor with the Walter und Charlotte Hamel Stiftung.