DeKiela Sunrise

DeKiela Sunrise was founded in1998 as a section of the Rock and Pop School Kiel. In 2012, the choir became self-dependent and is currently comprised of more than thirty vocalists from the Kiel region of Germany.

Conductor and arranger Axel Riemann brings a new repertoire to the group with music ranging from Foreigner to Queen, B52 to U2 and Peter Gabriel to Nelly Furtado, all garnished with chorographical elements. Choir members love to connect songs to full-length stories such as Space Odyssey in 2006 and Too Late Night Show in 2008. Recently the group displayed their creativity while performing in Elements, a magical "chorical," which contained classical and ethno music. DeKiela Sunrise mostly performs a cappella usually accompanied by a keyboard or cachon. The trip to Ohrid will be the their first participation in a choir festival abroad.

Born in 1970, Axel Riemann first learned to build pianos and then went on to study  “Jazzpiano”. He was trained to teach piano, keyboards and studio engineering. In addition to conducting DeKiela Sunrise he currently acts as an arranger, composer and musical director for several theatre productions. He plays keyboard/piano in different bands (Jazz and Funk).

Kiel is located in northern Germany near the Baltic Sea. The city is known for its naval base and shipyard industry and was the host of the Olympic sailing games in 1936 and 1972. The city has since applied to host the games again in 2024. The city annually hosts a sailing regatta, Kieler Woche or Kiel Week, which is the biggest summer festival in Northern Europe, attracting more than three million visitors each June. As a port city, Kiel, offers ferry service to Sweden, Norway and Lithuania. The city hosts over thirty thousand students and offers its constituents a very vital range of choirs and ensembles.

-GG