Herbert Collum (18 July 1914 − 29 April 1982) was a German organist, harpsichordist, composer and conductor.
Born in Leipzig, Collum received high school education between 1921 and 1929. He continued from 1930 to 1934 at the Church Music Institute in Leipzig, where he studied organ with Karl Straube and Günther Ramin, piano with Carl Adolf Martienssen, choral conducting with Kurt Thomas, and musical composition with Johann Nepomuk David and Fritz Reuter.[1][2] Already by 1927 he had become deputy organist at the St. Matthäikirche Leipzig. From 1932 to 1935 he served as assistant to Ramin, Thomaskantor at the Thomaskirche. His appointment in 1935 as principal organist, "Kreuzorganist", at the Kreuzkirche in Dresden signalled the beginning of his creative period; he remained in that post until his death in April 1982 at the age of 67. His successor as Kreuzorganiste was Michael-Christfried Winkler.[3]
At the end of World War II, Collum founded his own choir in 1946, with a dedicated set of concerts. To mark the 200th anniversary of J S Bach's death, he organised 24 concerts between September 1949 and August 1950, featuring the Collum Choir and members of the Staatskapelle Dresden. The performances took place at the Martin Luther Church in the Neustadt and the Reformed Church, because the Kreuzkirche had been damaged by fire after bombing in 1945.
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As Kreuzorganist, Collum also took on various teaching roles. From 1942 to 1945 and again between 1954 and 1956, he was a lecturer at the Dresden Conservatory, teaching organ there from 1956 to 1958. He also taught organ at the Spandauer Kirchenmusikschule from 1949 to 1961, with a professorship in 1960. He began reaching harpsichord at the Musikhochschule Dresden in 1964, the same year as his appointment to the jury of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition.
In 1942 he married the singer and teacher Herta Maria Böhme-Collum. After one year Christian Collum was born: following in the footsteps of his parents, he became an organist and church musician.
Collum was buried according to his last wishes in Reinhardtsgrimma. He frequently gave concerts on the Silbermann organ in the village church and made a recording in the series "Bach on Silbermann Organs". The concert tradition founded by him has successfully been continued under the direction of the current Kreuzorganist Holger Gehring, resulting in the organ becoming one of the best known in Saxony.
In 1973 Collum received the Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic. In Dresden, the Herbert-Collum-Straße was later named after him.[4] The archives of Herbert Collum are kept in the Saxon State and University Library Dresden.[5]
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