Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs
Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs was a German conductor, music scholar, and publicist on music.
Early career
Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs made his early conducting debut in 1984 with the orchestra of the Youth Music School in Hameln, where he received his early musical education in 1972. In the same year, he founded the Youth String Orchestra of Hameln, which performed with him numerous works of the string- and chamber orchestra repertoire until 1992. From 1986 to 1989 he studied conducting privately with the noted Italian composer and conductor Nicola Samale, and from 1989 to 1994 concert conducting, voice and flute at the Conservatory of Arts, Bremen. He also attended to rehearsals and projects of numerous well-known conductors and performed himself with several choirs and orchestras. His concert examination in 1994 included compositions by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Jean Sibelius and Frank Martin as well as the first Bremen performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5, recorded and broadcast by Radio Bremen. In 1996 he finished a Postgraduate Diploma in Musicology at the University of Adelaide for which he was granted a full scholarship of the DAAD. Since then, he had developed a career as a freelance concert conductor, editor, scholar and publicist on music. Cohrs finished his PhD in Musicology in 2009.Conductor
Ben Cohrs made his international conducting debut in November 2000 in the Moscow Bolshoi Hall, when he introduced historically informed performing practice to the Russian National Orchestra. In March 2001 he participated in the farewell concert of the famous Philharmonia Hungarica, which was closed by the German Government and the Orchestral Union for political reasons. He appeared with orchestras such as the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra, and the Janacek Philharmonic; with the latter he gave the Austrian premiere of Bruckner’s completed Ninth Symphony in Gmunden. In September 2013 he conducted the first performance of his new completion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart´s Requiem in D minor in Germany.Scholar and publicist on music
From 1996, Cohrs had contributed to international music magazines, presented pre-concert-talks as well as his own radio programmes, wrote programme notes, booklet notes, reports on musicological conferences and was a successful editor of music. From 1995 to 2012 he was a co-editor of the Bruckner-Gesamtausgabe. He was a well-known Bruckner-scholar, in particular due to his studies and editions of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. He was also a member of the editorial team of Nicola Samale which prepared the Completed Performing Version of the unfinished Finale of Bruckner's Ninth. He resigned from the team in 2021 after John A. Phillips had published his own revision without Cohrs' participation. For the Magazine Musik-Konzepte he compiled Vol. 120/121/122 on request of the earlier editors, Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn. He also edited new completed performing versions of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony in b-minor, the Great Mass in C minor and the Requiem by Mozart, both based on original sources. Since 2012 he was Editor in Chief of the Anton Bruckner Edition Wien, in which all collected works by Anton Bruckner will appear in new, modern Urtext editions. As the first volume of the Anton Bruckner Urtext Gesamtausgabe, the Symphony No. 7 in E major appeared in Summer 2015. In 2016 the Symphony No. 6 in A major followed, 2017 the Missa Solemnis in B flat, 2018 the Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, 2018 the Requiem d minor, and 2021 the Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major.Cohrs died from a heart attack on 21 November 2023, at the age of 58.
Editions of music
- Lili Boulanger: Théme et Variations for Piano. First Edition. Tonger, Cologne, 2005
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. IX in d-minor New critical edition, Bruckner Complete Edition, Vienna 2000
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. IX, Finale. Completed Performance Version ; ; Adelaide/Bremen 1992. Revised Edition : 2005/rev. 2008/rev. 2012; Score : Repertoire Explorer Nr. 444 / Musikproduktion Hoeflich, Munich, 2012; Orchestral Parts: BGC Manuscript Edition, Bremen.
- Anton Bruckner: Scherzo und Trio / Ältere Trios mit Viola-Solo. Bruckner Complete Edition, Vienna 1998
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. IX, Two earlier, discarded Trios. Performance Version Doblinger, Vienna, 1998.
- Frank Martin: Sonata da Chiesa for Flute and String Orchestra ; First Edition, Universal-Edition, Vienna 1997.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, Credo & Agnus Dei, Completion from original sources. Score: Repertoire Explorer Nr. 1049, Musikproduktion Höflich, Munich, 2010; Performance Material: BGC Manuscript Edition, Bremen
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem in D minor, new Completion. Score: Repertoire Explorer Nr. 1425, Musikproduktion Höflich, Munich, 2013; Performance Material: BGC Manuscript Edition, Bremen
- Erik Satie: Trois Gymnopédies, Arrangement for String Orchestra with Harp ad lib.; Score and Parts; First Edition, Doblinger, Vienna 2006
- Franz Schubert: Symphony in b minor D 759, Scherzo D 759/3 / Orchestral Movement D 797/1 ; Score: Repertoire Explorer Nr. 884 / Musikproduktion Hoeflich, Munich, 2008; Orchestral Parts: BGC Manuscript Edition, Bremen.