Name: Night of the Choirs Hamburg 2026
Start: 2026-05-30T00:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-05-30T00:00:00+00:00
Location: Hauptkirche St. Petri

Night of the Choirs

About Night of the Choirs

The Night of the Choirs transforms St. Petri's Main Church into a stage for choral music of all genres for nine hours on Saturday, May 30, 2026. This long-standing Hamburg event is part of the Long Nights series and brings together numerous choirs from Hamburg and the surrounding area, presenting sacred and secular vocal music in continuous succession. The repertoire ranges from Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and Bach motets to pop arrangements, gospel, jazz, and contemporary vocal literature. The venue, one of Hamburg's five main churches with its striking 132-meter tower, offers impressive acoustics for this musical journey through the history of vocal art.

Dates 30 May — 30 May 2026

Venue Hamburg (02000)

Prices Free

Status Confirmed

Edition 2026

Night of the Choirs — edition 2026

On Saturday, May 30, 2026, the Night of the Choirs takes place in St. Petri's Main Church. For nine hours, numerous choirs from Hamburg and Northern Germany perform one after another, presenting sacred and secular vocal music ranging from Gregorian chant and Bach motets to gospel, pop arrangements, and contemporary vocal literature. Free admission.

The Night of the Choirs 2026 continues the Hamburg Long Night tradition. Over nine hours of concert time, various choirs from the state of Hamburg perform, supplemented by guests from Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. The program does not follow a strict chronology – Renaissance polyphony stands alongside pop choir arrangements, Bach motets next to Whitacre, gospel next to Hildegard von Bingen.

The sound space of St. Petri's Main Church lends its own resonance to each stylistic epoch. The audience moves freely between concert blocks, coming and going, curating their own listening dramaturgy. Program leaflets with exact performance times are available at the entrance and will be communicated via the Main Church's website.

Highlights Night of the Choirs 2026

Nine hours of choral music in St. Petri's Main Church
Diversity from Gregorian chant through Bach to Contemporary and Gospel
Free admission (donation for the Main Church at the exit)
Part of the Hamburg Long Night tradition

Programme Night of the Choirs 2026

Saturday, May 30, 2026 – St. Petri's Main Church

Approx. 9-hour program block, alternating between Renaissance polyphony, Baroque, Romantic, Gospel, and Contemporary
Participating Choirs: Hamburg and Northern German vocal ensembles, performances spread throughout the evening and night program
Program leaflet with detailed times at the entrance and on sankt-petri.de
Free movement between concert blocks allowed

The detailed lineup will be announced before the event on the website of St. Petri's Main Church and on hamburg.de.

Prices Night of the Choirs 2026

Free admission. Donations accepted for St. Petri's Main Church at the exit. No ticket reservation necessary.

Practical information

Practical information — Night of the Choirs

Getting There

St. Petri's Main Church, Bei der Petrikirche 2, 20095 Hamburg. U-Bahn (subway) U3 'Rathaus' or U1 'Jungfernstieg' (5 min. walk each). S-Bahn (urban rail) 'Jungfernstieg'.

Admission

Free admission, donations accepted for St. Petri's Main Church at the exit.

On Site

A program leaflet with the choirs' performance times is available at the entrance. The church's acoustics are ideal for attentive, quiet listening. Family-friendly, but with young children, please be considerate of other listeners.

St. Petri's Main Church as a Sound Space

St. Petri's Main Church in Hamburg's Old Town is one of Hamburg's five Evangelical Lutheran main churches. Its Neo-Gothic structure from the 19th century replaced the predecessor destroyed in the Great Fire of 1842. With its 132-meter tower – one of the tallest church towers in Germany – and its resonant yet precise acoustics, it is an ideal concert venue for choral music. It is precisely this acoustics that makes the Night of the Choirs so appealing.

Nine Hours of Choral Music

The Night of the Choirs is designed as a marathon: over nine hours, various choirs from Hamburg and Northern Germany perform one after another in the church. The program does not follow a strict chronology but alternates between centuries, styles, and language areas: Gregorian chant and Hildegard von Bingen alongside Palestrina and Lasso, Bach motets next to Brahms song cycles, Mendelssohn psalms alongside Whitacre arrangements, gospel and spirituals next to Scandinavian choral modernism. The audience can freely come and go between concert blocks, curating their own listening experience.

A Hamburg Long Night Tradition

The Night of the Choirs is part of the Hamburg Long Nights series, which the state has cultivated as a specific format for decades: Long Night of Museums, Long Night of Consulates, Long Night of Industry, Hamburg Theatre Night, Night of Churches, HAM.LIT for Literature and Music. The Night of the Choirs occupies the vocal niche within this: a concert-focused, participatory opportunity to survey Hamburg's choral scene in a single evening.

A Vocal Highlight in the State of Hamburg

Hamburg's choral scene is exceptionally dense: the Hamburg Choir Association alone unites over 200 choirs. The Night of the Choirs makes this diversity visible and audible for one night. For tourists, it is a unique opportunity to experience the full spectrum of choral music in one of Hamburg's most beautiful main churches – without having to book a single concert evening.