Georg Grün (Chair)

Germany

Georg Grün is considered to be one of the most sought-after international choral conductors and specialists for choral sound. He founded the KammerChor Saarbrücken in 1990 and has been its Artistic Director ever since then.

He has won many of the most prestigious national and international choir competitions, gives concerts at numerous renowned music festivals and regularly produces CDs with Saarländischer Rundfunk, Carus and Rondeau Productions.

Since 2012, Georg has been a Professor at the University of Music Saar and became Artistic Director of the BachChor Saarbrücken. In 2015 he set up the now internationally successful “HfM Summer School” for choral conductors, of which he is still Artistic Director, and in May 2025, he will succeed Professor Jürgen Budday as the Artistic Director of the International Chamber Choir Competition Marktoberdorf, Germany (ICCC).

Øystein Fevang

Norway

Øystein Fevang (b. 1963) is a Norwegian conductor, singer and musician.

After founding the chamber choir Ensemble 96 in 1996, Fevang quickly established the choir in the elite amongst Norwegian choirs, with numerous premiere performances and recordings. In 2006 he was nominated for a Grammy Award with the record “Immortal Nystedt” in the category “Best choral performance”. (The same record was also Grammy nominated as “Best surround sound album”.)

In 2006 Øystein left Ensemble 96, to take over the Oslo Philharmonic Choir, where he has served as the conductor and artistic director to date.

Along with his practicing career, Øystein Fevang has been teaching choir, conducting, vocal and piano at Rud senior high school. At the first day of school year in August 2019 he made a spontanious sing along with his students, performing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. A video of this went viral, and Queen themselves shared the video. It has now surpassed 30 million views.

Orla Flanagan

Ireland

Orla Flanagan is Assistant Professor of Music at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She studied conducting with Prof. Péter Erdei at the Kodály Institute in Hungary and holds a doctorate in performance from the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Orla conducts the mixed-voice choir Mornington Singers, an award-winning Dublin ensemble which has appeared at international festivals in Ireland, Italy, Canada, France, Latvia and Slovenia. The choir was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2019 International Baltic Sea Choir Competition in Jūrmala, Latvia. As a conductor, Orla has also gained numerous awards at international competitions, including the MacCurtain & McSwiney Award for programming at Cork International Choral Festival on three occasions, and a special prize for interpretation at the 10^th International Choral Competition, Maribor, Slovenia.

Orla’s work with professional choral ensembles includes Milltown Chamber Choir, EnsemBéal, Resurgam, and Chamber Choir Ireland. She enjoys giving choral workshops and adjudicating at festivals nationally and internationally. Orla is Artistic Director of the Sing Ireland International Choral Conducting Summer School.

Hermia Schlichtmann

Germany

After several years as a church musician, Hermia graduated in her second music studies with a diploma in choral and orchestral conducting. Her work as a conductor, voice trainer and organist has taken her abroad to countries such as France, Norway, Sweden, Ireland and several times to the USA.

Hermia’s concert activity with her oratorio choir KonzertChor Bergisch Gladbach and her choirs in Hesse are as much in demand as her leadership of the choral conducting departments during the Wetterauer Summer Music Academy FESTIVOKAL and the German-American Choir and Culture Festivals.

In summer of 2016 Hermia was a tutor during the Conducting Summer School at The Association of Irish Choirs (AOIC) and in 2017/2022 she was an adjudicator at the City of Derry International Choir Festival.

Since August 2019, Hermia has been cathedral cantor and organist at the Frankfurt Cathedral of St. Bartholomew and director of the boys’ choirs at the Frankfurt Cathedral School, of which she became director in April 2020.

Borbála Szirányi

Hungary

Borbála Szirányi graduated in music education and choral conducting at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. From 1996 to 2015 she worked at the music school of the Hungarian State Opera House’s children’s choir as classroom music teacher for both primary and secondary school level and choir conductor.

From 2000 to 2006 she regularly taught as a visiting professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing where the Kodály programme was launched under her direction.

From 2010 she is a teacher at the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music and regularly conducts post-graduate courses for Hungarian music teachers. From 2014 she also teaches at the Kós Károly Általános Iskola, which is part of the Model School Program led by the Liszt Academy of Music. In this project she and her colleagues experiment new music methodological techniques based on the Kodály concept in order to refresh and renew the Hungarian music pedagogy, making it more adaptable to the 21st centuries classroom.

In addition to her school music teaching, her work with children’s choirs and amateur choirs is an important part of her life.