Martina Elmer Appointed Manager of Bavarian Radio Choir

Martina Elmer will become manager of the Bavarian Radio Choir on 1 November, succeeding Susanne Vongries, who is retiring after 21 years in the role.

The appointment brings an administrator with experience in festivals, orchestral planning and touring to the Munich-based ensemble. Her responsibilities will include personnel and organisational matters, alongside work with the artistic leadership on programmes, formats, productions and guest appearances.

Elmer arrives from the Budapest Festival Orchestra, where she has overseen artistic programming and touring. She took up that position in May 2025.

Previously, she spent eight years with the Salzburg Festival, working in concert administration and helping develop its programme for younger audiences. Her work included the creation of jung & jede*r during the festival’s 2020–21 centenary period.

Born in Salzburg in 1989, Elmer studied applied musicology and clarinet as well as business and music and cultural management. Her education took her to Klagenfurt, Mexico City and Munich.

Her earlier professional experience includes the Bavarian State Opera, where she worked with the opera studio and on touring between 2015 and 2017. The new appointment therefore also marks a return to Munich’s institutional musical life.

The choir manager’s remit connects artistic plans with the arrangements needed to realise them. Staffing, schedules and visiting engagements sit alongside discussions about how an ensemble presents its work and develops its public profile.

Elmer’s background spans those practical demands and the creation of new audience formats. The combination will be relevant to a role requiring close coordination between musicians, artistic leadership and administration.

Vongries’s departure closes a particularly long period of management continuity. The November handover begins the next phase with an appointee whose experience links a major international festival, an opera house and a touring orchestra.