What is constantly fascinating about Lorenz Maierhofer’s choral works is the composer’s wonderful musicality. Each and every note makes clear to both performers and audiences that Lorenz Maierhofer is a composer who is able to combine at the highest level technical brilliance, melodic subtlety and rhythmic creativity – and that in virtuoso form across all styles and levels of difficulty.

Lorenz Maierhofer’s ‘Eternal Hallelujah’ and ‘Glory to the Lord’ are compositional masterpieces of contemporary choral music at the highest international level. They arouse the enthusiasm of choirs, competition juries and audiences alike. My choir and I share a bond of many years of friendship with the composer. In international choral competitions and concerts in places as far flung as China and America, several of the works he has composed for us have enabled us to win top awards.

Lorenz Maierhofer is one of the leading personalities among European composers. His melodies, the tonal colour and dynamism of his compositions, and his refreshing musician’s humour never fail to impress. He possesses a convincing professional and human competence at a high level.

Lorenz Maierhofer is able like no other to compose music ‘made to measure.’ This makes his music accessible to large numbers of choirs, though always with the necessary degree of challenge. In addition, he knows how to arouse enthusiasm in workshops at an international level.

Like almost no other choral composer, Lorenz Maierhofer has an excellent understanding of how to compose for choirs and of the opportunities and means that they have available, always with an overall choral musical outcome that is very effective and powerful.

I constantly find myself with a special bond to the sacred compositions of my brother, Lorenz. His ‘Missa Lumen’ must rank among the most successful of compositions of the mass.

May his never diminishing, burning enthusiasm for choral music and his untiring musing on new ways of promoting it, serve as an example for many musicians!

Lorenz Maierhofer has substantially extended and enriched the repertoire of our choirs. Many of his songs have become folk songs – an impressive ‘feedback’ from our choirs to the composer.

There is scarcely any other composer and musician who has had such an impact on the Styrian choral scene as Professor Lorenz Maierhofer. He is also one of the foremost proponents of the ‘new Styrian songs’. His choral song ‘A sunniges Platzl’ (A Place in the Sun – CD Have a Nice Day, Track 27) has been delighting people for decades. As head of the government of Styria I thank him.

In the course of our long years of friendship, I have come to appreciate his warm-heartedness, candour, straightforwardness, tact and sensitivity, the depth of his insights and the subtlety of his musical flair. Music virtually permeates him. His compositions and lyrics are born of an inner flame, a constantly seething volcano of musical and literary ideas. When he composes, he is driven by a genuine desire to create tailor-made works not only for the professional choir, but for the amateur choir.

It has constantly been my experience that Lorenz Maierhofer’s lieder, songs and warm-ups prove to be a real treasure trove for me when conveying pleasurable and holistic singing. Their content is wonderfully thought through, they are richly varied and superbly practicable.

Lorenz Maierhofer has succeeded better than almost any other composer in creating countless secular and sacred songs that are sung with great pleasure by choirs both great and small, and that appeal to a broad audience.

Lorenz Maierhofer, my friend of many years’ standing and co-editor of the Christmas collection ‘Das große Advents- und Weihnachts-Chorbuch’ (The Big Advent and Christmas Choir Book) is an enormously creative musician. Numerous ‘hits’, like ‘Come and See the Christmas Star’ and ‘Now It’s Time for Leaving’ have become permanent elements in the repertoire of almost every choir. His compositions range from the folk-songlike to the oratorio, with ease of performance in practice always close to his heart. A particular focus is his choral music for Advent and Christmastide. Also, as a proponent of teaching methods for music and choral singing, there can be few people who have brought about as many positive effects as he has – across all age and performance levels.

For the international children’s choir festival in Dresden in 2014, he composed the piece ‘The Light of the Future’, a challenging work creating a great dramatic arc to the issue of human rights, and dedicated to UNICEF. Its first performance in the Frauenkirche / Church of Our Lady turned into a lasting and impressive experience for all the participating choirs.

Lorenz Maierhofer has sought and found his place in the choral landscape. His complete oeuvre is impressive not only because of its scope, but also because of his grasp of the needs of different choirs in every imaginable formation, for every imaginable occasion and with every imaginable level of difficulty. Most impressive of all, however, is the way in which he combines this breadth with a very personal sensitivity, for which there are very few comparable examples in contemporary choral music.

It is Lorenz Maierhofer’s boundless musicality that makes him impressive, but also his innovative spirit and profundity. He perceives the global scene as an undivided whole, reflects on it, provides impulses and brings people together.

Lorenz Maierhofer is such a creative individual that he needs to have several names to cope with all his ideas. And what makes him so outstanding for me: he manages to organise, develop and finalise his enormous output – always with a concept, without mental barriers, with love of music and of singers, and always in friendship with his artists. I am a fan!

Lorenz Maierhofer is imbued with an open-hearted love of humanity that serves him as the inexhaustible source of his constantly effervescent creativity. His lyrical and musical messages are astonishingly clear and simple , sometimes serious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek comments on all areas of interpersonal relationships, but also on the fears of the individual and what they are searching for. This is driven by a profound preoccupation with human existence, sensitive experience of life, and above all an inner need to communicate something to humanity. People are touched by this respectful attentiveness, they feel understood and accepted, and encouraged to reflect critically on themselves.

In Portugal many choirs love to sing Lorenz Maierhofer’s choral music, especially his ethno music, the Ethno-Mass for Peace and his rousing new gospels.

The impressive ability to write melodious original compositions and arrangements for all voice types is a feature that especially marks out Lorenz Maierhofer. His compositions are not sung by top quality ensembles alone, many of his works are today also part of the standard repertoire of traditional choirs.

I believe that it is not possible to overestimate the role played by the music and choral teaching achievements of Lorenz Maierhofer in reawakening people’s joy in singing. In addition, as an internationally successful composer, beloved of choirs, who has remained active and young at heart, he has shown how fruitful the combination of tradition and lived stylistic pluralism can be.

Lorenz, you musical thoroughbred, composer, arranger and choral visionary! 60 years old – that's really rock 'n' roll! I love your calls on the carphone with just that sound quality that the high Alps make possible. Thanks to your countless choir notes, dubidu can also count as easy-to-sing. What Hans-Günther Heumann is for the piano, you are for the world of the choir. Right on! Thousands of choir singers will be eternally grateful. Mr Maierhofer, here’s a top C to you!

Again and again a very subtle humour comes bursting through in Lorenz Maierhofer’s compositions. Like for example when he really stirred up the male-voice choir scene with his Augustin-Rap. Audiences and singers alike are grateful for such an original enrichment of the repertoire.

Lorenz Maierhofer listens, listens to the ‘sound of silence’ and to the musical essence of world music. He has studied the masters of the last 400 years and is able, better than almost any other, to incorporate these precious treasures into his inimitable lyrical and melodic creations. And he loves and respects amateur choirs, and holds in high regard their hard and tenacious work with and for choral music. Thus he produces singable and attractive compositions that lead in short order, for every genre and every age group, to an enrichment of the repertoire. Collegial and far-sighted, he has built up a unique network of composers and arrangers that he regularly motivates to produce creative innovations. As a result, recent years have seen the publication by Helbling of valuable collections that have become an indispensable part of everyday choral life.

In addition to Lorenz Maierhofer the composer and musician, I have an especially high regard for Lorenz Maierhofer the entertainer. Whatever his role, whether as choir director, as expert speaker in workshops or as leader of advanced or in-service training courses, he is immediately able to fire up, inspire and captivate his audience. Endowed with a wealth of Austrian charm, warm-heartedness and humour, but also with comprehensive professional competence, he can easily instantly win the hearts of an audience.

With his compositions and his choral arrangements of well-known pieces, Lorenz Maierhofer has given pleasure to countless people and made a contribution to the harmony of the world community.