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The German conductor and organist, Berthold Botzet, studied catholic church music in Trier and Aachen, and finished in 1986 with A-exams for Kantor. He completed his organ studies at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf in the organ class of Professor Paul Heuser, which he finished in 1989 with concert diploma. Studies of the Gregorian chant and Semiologie took place with Professor Dr. Godehard Joppich at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen. He also took courses in choir directing and conducting with Professor Volker Hempfling and Hermann Max.
Since 1987 Berthold Botzet is lecturer at the Kirchenmusikschule St. Gregorius in Aachen, in the meantime Hochschule für Kirchenmusik St. Gregorius Aachen. From 1989 to 2000 he was Kantor at the Hauptpfarrkirche St. Sebastian Nettetal and since summer 2000 he is Domkapellmeister at the Hohen Dom in Aachen. His engagement there includes many Dom concerts and further appearances in Aachen and around, beside the daily liturgical and musical services.
Thus concert tours took him and the Aachener Domchor to the Central German countries as well as to Luxembourg, to Switzerland and to South Korea. In the big Dom concerts he has performed so far the Bach's Passions, Mozart's Requiem, Te Deum and Stabat Mater by Dvorák as well as the F minor Mass by Bruckner.
Apart from the activity at the Aachener Dom, Berthold Botzet participates at the Aachener seminar for priests and is member of the Kirchenmusikkommission (church music commission) of Bistums Aachen and representative of Bistums Aachen in the Nationalverband (national federation) of the Pueri Cantores Deutschland.
A special high point was the co-operation of the Aachener Domchor with the extraordinary Karlspreis-Verleihung of the city Aachen at Pope Johannes Paul II on March 24, 2004. |
