Founded in 1953, the Münchner Oratorienchor is an amateur choir of some 120 singers that concentrates on the large choral-orchestral repertoire — Bach passions, Handel oratorios, the Verdi and Brahms requiems, Carmina Burana — and gives its own concert series in Munich alongside appearances with visiting orchestras. It rehearses weekly, auditions its members, and works with professional soloists and freelance orchestras for each project, a pattern common to the German Oratorienchor tradition, in which civic choral societies carry a repertoire that professional houses stage only occasionally.