Berlin's Landesjugendorchester and Rundfunk Youth Choirs: How Kids Actually Join

Two Very Different Doors Into Berlin’s Youth Music Scene

If you’ve heard that Berlin has a state youth orchestra and a radio youth choir and assumed both work the same way, a single open audition and you’re in, it’s worth slowing down before you build a plan around that assumption. The orchestra side genuinely does work close to that model: a citywide audition, open to any qualified musician in the relevant age range. The choir side is a different story entirely, and getting that distinction right up front will save a newcomer family a lot of misdirected effort.

Landesjugendorchester Berlin at a Glance

The Landesjugendorchester Berlin (LJO Berlin) was founded in 1987 as a facility of the Landesmusikrat Berlin e.V., conceived specifically as a follow-up track for strong performers coming out of the Jugend musiziert competition. It’s a full symphonic ensemble, roughly 80 to 90 musicians according to the institution’s own profile in Germany’s music information database (MIZ), playing standard orchestral instruments across the full range of a symphony orchestra. Rather than a single fixed principal conductor, artistic leadership rotates between work phases, with different conductors invited for different programs, while the orchestra’s own organizational side is coordinated by a project director.

Admission runs through a genuine audition, not an open rehearsal you can simply show up to. A jury made up of LJO instructors hears candidates and decides who’s admitted, and the audition itself typically happens six to eight weeks before the relevant work phase starts. There’s no residency or nationality requirement stated in the program’s own materials beyond being able to attend the audition and, if admitted, the full work phase in Berlin.

How to Actually Apply

The application process itself starts online: you fill out and save a data-entry form through the Landesmusikrat Berlin’s own site. After that, specific audition material is sent to you so you know what to prepare. If your child passes the audition, the final step is to sign the confirmation document and send it back, by email or post, to the Landesmusikrat Berlin. That signed document is what actually locks in the spot: the application isn’t considered valid until it arrives.

The Two Work Phases: What a Cycle Actually Looks Like

The orchestra doesn’t rehearse continuously through the year. Instead, it runs two concentrated work phases, one built around the Easter holidays and one around the autumn (October) holidays, each following the same basic shape: sectional rehearsals by instrument group first, then a week-long residential retreat where the full orchestra rehearses one complete concert program together, ending in a public performance. Concerts traditionally take place at the Konzerthaus Berlin or in rbb’s Großer Sendesaal.

Attendance at every scheduled date within a work phase is mandatory once your child is admitted to that phase, not optional depending on how busy the week is, so it’s worth blocking the residential retreat dates on the family calendar as soon as a spot is confirmed. The orchestra’s history includes international touring beyond these regular Berlin concerts, with past trips to Poland, France, Turkey, Russia, and the Czech Republic, giving a sense of the level the ensemble performs at once a work phase is underway.

What It Costs

Participation costs 300 EUR per work phase. The program’s own materials are upfront that this fee covers only around a quarter of what it actually costs to run a work phase per musician, everything from the residential retreat’s room and board to instructor fees and venue costs, with the Landesmusikrat Berlin subsidizing the rest. If that fee would be a genuine barrier for your family, reductions are available on demonstrated financial need; it’s worth raising this directly with the Landesmusikrat Berlin during the application process rather than assuming the price is fixed for everyone.

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Berlin’s “Rundfunk” Choir Tradition: What Actually Still Exists

Here’s where it’s worth resetting expectations. There isn’t a standing choir today, actively holding open auditions, under the exact name Rundfunk-Jugendchor Berlin. What does exist, and does trace back to that same radio-choir tradition, is the Rundfunk-Kinderchor Berlin: founded in 1955, it became one of the leading children’s choirs of the GDR, and by the 1970s it had been folded into the ensemble program of the Georg-Friedrich-Handel-Gymnasium, a specialized music Gymnasium in Berlin-Friedrichshain at Frankfurter Allee 6a. Its own materials are explicit that it’s no longer formally affiliated with any broadcaster today, it simply carried its historic name forward. Carsten Schultze has directed the choir since January 2002.

Despite the “Kinderchor” (children’s choir) name, it isn’t the only or even the most senior ensemble at the school. Handel-Gymnasium runs six choirs in total: the entry-level Handelkinderchor, the Rundfunk-Kinderchor, Canta Chiara, be:one, Voca, and Die Primaner (literally “the seniors,” for the school’s oldest students), led collectively by three directors. In practice, students move through this sequence of choirs as they progress through the school’s grades, which is exactly why joining any one of them, the Rundfunk-Kinderchor included, isn’t something you can arrange as a standalone audition. The choir is downstream of enrollment at the school itself.

The Real Path In: Handel-Gymnasium’s Own Entrance Exam

Handel-Gymnasium is a “Schule besonderer pädagogischer Prägung,” a school with a legally recognized special pedagogical profile, and it’s structurally unusual compared to most Berlin Gymnasien: rather than admitting students at the standard transfer point into grade 7, it runs a two-track program starting in grade 5 (a third, smaller track starting at grade 7 was added in 2012/13). That means the relevant decision point for a family is right after grade 4, around age 10, not the more familiar grade-6-to-7 Berlin secondary school transfer that most newcomer families plan around.

Getting in requires passing the school’s own music entrance exam, and the school publishes the scoring structure in detail. The exam has two parts: a general music test consisting of five exercises testing melody recognition and five testing rhythm, and then either singing a freely chosen song or performing an instrumental piece, whichever of those two scores higher is the one that counts toward the final total. Two music teachers score the performance independently, each awarding up to a base maximum of points across several criteria (security, intonation, interpretation, difficulty level, and overall impression), with up to 5 additional bonus points per teacher available for exceptional ability, such as performing a self-composed piece, self-accompaniment, or documented competition success.

A combined score of 60 out of 100 points is the threshold the school treats as demonstrating musical suitability. That’s only part of the admission picture, though: the school also expects strong to excellent grades across core academic subjects, since it’s a full academic Gymnasium alongside its music profile, plus English starting in grade 5 and a continued foreign language (French) from grade 7. Every admitted family signs a written commitment (Bereitschaftserklärung) agreeing that their child will participate in the school’s ensembles and take individual instrumental or voice lessons, since the whole point of the school’s structure is that ensemble participation, choirs and orchestras alike, is built into the curriculum rather than being an optional after-school activity.

Registration for the entrance exam itself typically opens in early January of the year before enrollment (the school ran its registration window from January 5 to 9 for one recent cohort, handled through its own online ticketing portal), for children currently finishing grade 4. If your child is already past that age, this specific admission window has closed for them; the school’s smaller grade-7 intake track is the next realistic checkpoint, worth checking directly with the school for whether it’s running and what its own entrance requirements look like that year.

If You Don’t Want to Change Schools: Landesjugendchor Berlin

If enrolling your child at a specialized music Gymnasium isn’t realistic, whether because they’re already past grade 5, or your family simply doesn’t want to restructure schooling around a choir, there’s a genuinely accessible alternative: the Landesjugendchor Berlin. It’s the official audition choir (Auswahlchor) of the Chorverband Berlin e.V., the city’s own choir association, and it’s built for exactly this kind of situation, no school transfer, no years-ahead planning.

Singers aged 14 to 26 are eligible. Auditions happen once a year in summer, with the choir’s own materials putting the likely window for an upcoming cycle around July and September. Applying doesn’t require navigating a formal portal: you simply email the choir directly with a short description of your singing experience, your age, and your voice part (soprano, alto, tenor, bass, or wherever you’d place yourself), and they’ll register you for the coming season and follow up once specific audition dates are locked in. The time commitment is considerably lighter than a school-based choir too, roughly ten rehearsal dates a year, including at least one rehearsal weekend, rather than a curriculum built around daily ensemble participation. The repertoire leans toward contemporary pop music rather than classical choral works, which the choir itself describes as “colorful, young, and dynamic,” a genuinely different musical identity from the Rundfunk-Kinderchor’s classical and choral-symphonic programming, not a watered-down version of it.

Step by Step: Landesjugendorchester Berlin

1. Check that your child’s instrument and skill level fit, ages 14-21 on a standard orchestral instrument with solid training, ideally some orchestral experience already.
2. Complete the online application form on the Landesmusikrat Berlin’s site well before the relevant deadline (August 22, 2026 for the fall 2026 cycle).
3. Prepare using the audition materials sent to you after your application, since the audition itself happens roughly 6-8 weeks before the work phase (September 5-6, 2026 for the fall cycle).
4. After a successful audition, sign and return the confirmation document by email or post to the Landesmusikrat Berlin, since your spot only becomes official once that signed form arrives.
5. Block the full work-phase calendar, rehearsal weekend, residential retreat, and concert date, since attendance across the whole phase is mandatory once admitted.
6. Budget 300 EUR per phase, and ask directly about fee reductions if that amount would be a genuine barrier for your family.

Step by Step: A Serious Choir Without Waiting Years

1. Decide whether school enrollment is realistic: if your child is entering (or already in) grade 5 at Handel-Gymnasium’s admission point and you’re open to a specialized music Gymnasium, register for its entrance exam in the January registration window before that school year.
2. If school transfer isn’t realistic, email the Landesjugendchor Berlin directly through the Chorverband Berlin e.V., describing your child’s (or your own, since the choir takes singers up to 26) singing experience, age, and voice part.
3. Watch for the annual summer audition window, expected around July and September for the coming cycle, and follow up with the choir once specific dates are confirmed.
4. Plan around roughly ten rehearsal dates a year, including at least one weekend, considerably lighter than a school-based choir’s daily ensemble structure.

Compliance Note

This page reflects publicly available information about the Landesjugendorchester Berlin, the Rundfunk-Kinderchor Berlin, the Georg-Friedrich-Handel-Gymnasium, and the Landesjugendchor Berlin current as of mid-2026, drawn from the Landesmusikrat Berlin’s own program pages, the MIZ (Deutsches Musikinformationszentrum) institution database, German Wikipedia’s entries on both the orchestra and the school, Handel-Gymnasium’s own choir and admissions pages, and the Chorverband Berlin e.V.’s own page for the Landesjugendchor Berlin. Audition dates, application deadlines, fees, admission scoring, and registration windows can and do change from year to year; confirm current details directly with the Landesmusikrat Berlin, Handel-Gymnasium, or the Chorverband Berlin e.V. before relying on any specific date or figure in this article.