Christoph Prégardien
Born 1956 in Limburg, Germany, Christoph Prégardien began his musical education as a choirboy. He then studied singing with Martin Gründler and Karlheinz Jarius in Frankfurt, Carla Castellani in Milan, Alois Treml in Stuttgart and attended Hartmut Höll's lieder-class.
Widely regarded as among the foremost lyric tenors, Christoph Prégardien frequently collaborates with conductors such as Barenboim, Chailly, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe, Luisi, Metzmacher, Nagano, Sawallisch and Thielemann. His repertory spans a wide range from the great Baroque, Classical and Romantic Oratorios to 20th-century works by Britten, Killmayer, Rihm, Stravinsky.
Recognized as an eminent recitalist, Christoph Prégardien is regularly welcomed at the major recitals venues of Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Salzburg, Zurich, Vienna, Barcelona and Geneva, as well as during his concert tours throughout Italy, Japan and North America. A longstanding collaboration unites him with his favourite piano partners Michael Gees and Andreas Staier.
Soloist of choice for renowned orchestras, he performed with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, London Philharmonia, Staatskapelle Dresden, Philharmonie de Radio France and the Boston and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras.
An important part of his repertory has been recorded by major labels such as BMG, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, Sony, Erato and Teldec. He is represented on more than a hundred and twenty titles, including nearly all of his active repertoire.
His recordings of German Romantic Lied repertory have been highly acclaimed by the public and press and have received international awards including the prestigious Orphée d’Or of the Académie du Disque Lyrique-Prix Georg Solti, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Edison Award, Cannes Classical Award and Diapason d’Or.
A new recording (with pianist Michael Gees) of works by Robert Schumann (Liederkreis Op. 39) and Hugo Wolf with poems by Eichendorff has been released in June 2006 (Hänssler-Classics). A further cd with songs by Gustav Mahler (also with pianist Michael Gees) has been released in september 2009 and in September 2010 his recording of “Das italienische Liederbuch” by Hugo Wolf (with Julia Kleiter and Hilko Dumno) will be released.
As an opera singer, Christoph Prégardien has made stage appearences in major European houses, performing leading roles as Tamino (Mozart's “Zauberflöte”), Don Ottavio (in Mozart's “Don Giovanni”), Almaviva (in Rossini's “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”), Fenton (in Verdi's “Falstaff”) and Ulisse (in Monteverdi's “Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria”).
In May/June 2005, Christoph Prégardien sang the leading part in Mozart’s “La Clemenza diTito” at the Paris National Opera conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. There will be a revival in September 2006. A DVD of this production has been released by Opus Arte.
An important aspect in Christoph Prégardien’s musical activity is the intense and multi-faceted approach to his educational work. From 2000 to 2004, he taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Zurich. Since 2004, he has been a Professor at the Academy of Music Cologne.
In an innovative combination of DVD and book published in the series of “Schott Master Class”, he discusses issues of singing techniques and interpretation, by using multi-media techniques.
