Wolfgang Fromme

Wolfgang Fromme, tenor and singing teacher, founded the Collegium Vocale Köln in 1966, which came into being as a quintet of students of the Rheinische Musikschule Köln, and directed it as tenor and choral director. After his training as a singing teacher and state-certified music teacher at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen he was a lecturer in singing at the Rheinische Musikschule and at the Musikgymnasium Köln from 1967 to 1972. The ensemble combined Renaissance music with vocal music of the present day. In 1968 Karlheinz Stockhausen wrote “Stimmung” for the Collegium Vocale Köln on a commission from the city of Cologne; Fromme sang in the recording of 1969 and in the new recording of 1982, and up to 1986 the ensemble performed the work more than 300 times. In 1971 it gave the world premiere of Stockhausen’s “Sternklang” in Berlin, and in 1972 of “Alphabet für Liège”. Concert tours took the ensemble to Europe, America, Asia and Australia. He is represented as a performer on the Cybele album Portrait Günther Becker (1998).