Camille Saint-Saëns Agnus Dei (Messe de Requiem)

Camille Saint-Saëns was a true multi-talent. He was a pianist, conductor, organist, musicologist, music teacher and composer and became famous above all for the Carnival of the Animals and the opera Samson et Dalila.
He composed his Symphony in A major at the age of 15 and was accepted to the University of Paris at the age of 16. Saint-Saëns studied piano, organ and composition at the Paris Conservatoire and became organist of Saint-Séverin in Paris in 1852. In the same year, he also met Franz Liszt, who subsequently exerted an influence on Saint-Saëns' compositional work. A year later, he celebrated his musical debut as a composer. The opera Samson et Dalila, which premiered in Weimar in 1877, brought him lasting success in opera houses to this day. His Christmas oratorio Oratorio de Noël, which is available from Carus-Verlag, is probably the best-known of his sacred works. Personal details

Denis Rouger gained his initial musical experience as the son of a Parisian family of musicians and during his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he received first prizes in harmony, fugue and counterpoint.

He was a lecturer and choirmaster at the University of Paris-Sorbonne for 20 years and choirmaster at Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral for 10 years. He is honorary conductor of the Parisian church La Madeleine. He also collaborates with numerous ensembles in Germany. He has been invited as a guest conductor by radio choirs, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Choir and the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Concerts have taken him to Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland (Lucerne Festival).

He gives master classes in Sweden, Bulgaria, France, Germany, as well as in Switzerland.

Denis Rouger has been Professor of Choral Conducting at the Stuttgart State University of Music and Performing Arts since 2011. The chamber choir he founded at the university in the fall of 2011 won first prize at the International Choir Competition in Mosbach (Germany) in 2014.

In addition to his work as a choirmaster, he composes and arranges French and German songs for choir. His arrangements on the CDs Kennst Du das Land ... and ... wo die Zitronen blühn (Carus) were well received by the press and radio. In collaboration with Carus-Verlag, he has edited the choir book Französische Chormusik, which received the German Music Edition Award “Best Edition” in 2019.

In 2016, Denis Rouger founded the figure humaine kammerchor (www.figurehumaine.de), with which he regularly gives concerts at renowned festivals.

Personal details

Personal details