Florian Boesch

Austrian baritone Florian Boesch is hailed as one of today’s foremost Lieder interpreters, appearing regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie Cologne, the Edinburgh and Schwetzingen Festivals, Maifestspiele Wiesbaden, the Salzburg Festival, Konzerthaus in Dortmund, Philharmonie Luxemburg, as well as throughout the USA (including New York’s Carnegie Hall) and Canada. Accompanied by Malcolm Martineau, he performed all three Schubert cycles in Glasgow and across Australia (Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne). Florian Boesch has been an artist in residence at the Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus and Theater an der Wien, the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

As a frequent guest on the concert platform, Florian Boesch has worked with leading orchestras such as the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapielle Dresden, London Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Bamberger Symphoniker, and under conductors including Giovanni Antonini, Ivor Bolton, Teodor Currentzis, Riccardo Chailly, Gustavo Dudamel, Adam Fischer, Iván Fischer, Stefan Gottfried, Philippe Herreweghe, Pablo Heras-Casado, Vladimir Jurowski, Mariss Jansons, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Simon Rattle, Robin Ticciati and Franz Welser-Möst. He worked notably closely with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, with whom he performed Handel’s Messiah and Saul at the Wiener Musikverein and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the 2014 Styriarte festival. Further joint projects included Haydn’s The Seasons and The Creation at the 2013 Salzburg Festival, the latter work he performed in Japan.

Highlights of the current season include concerts with the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle in Edinburgh and at the BBC Proms, Haydn's The Seasons with Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, Beethoven’s Mass in C major with the Tonhalle Orchestra and Giovanni Antonini, Beethovens’s Symphony No. 9 with the Munich Philharmonic and Pablo Heras-Casado, and with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov, Brahms’ Requiem and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Herbert Blomstedt, among others. He will also give recitals at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw, London's Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela and at the Festival in Wiesbaden.

An equally compelling performer on the opera stage, Florian Boesch’s most recent productions included Handel’s Saul and Orlando conceived by Claus Guth at the Theater an der Wien. He has offered further acclaimed interpretations in staged versions of Schubert’s Lazarus and Handel’s Messiah, and as Jonathan Peachum in Kurt Weill’s Dreigroschenoper, in Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Theater an der Wien, while taking to the Berlin State Opera as Méphistophélès in Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust at the Schillertheater under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Major productions of his career include Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in Cologne and Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival. The 2022/2023 season marked Florian Boesch’s debut at the Vienna State Opera with a Mahler project entitled Von der Liebe Tod (leading team Calixto Bieito & Lorenzo Viotti), while in May 2023, he appeared in a staged production of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with Nikolaus Habjan and Musicbanda Franui at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, which they took to Bregenz, Graz and Gmunden. This successful production will be revived at the Theater an der Wien at the start of the new season. October 2023 sees him once more take on the role of Zoroastro in Claus Guth’s production of Handel’s Orlando, this time at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Florian Boesch’s recordings have been celebrated among the international press and have received numerous awards, including an Edison Klassiek Award in 2012. Die schöne Müllerin was nominated for a 2015 Grammy in the category Best Classical Vocal Solo. In early September 2017, Hyperion released a new recording of Schubert’s Winterreise with Roger Vignoles at the piano; in autumn 2018 followed a recording of Schubert songs in an orchestrated version with Concentus Musicus Vienna under the baton of Stefan Gottfried. Boesch’s recordings of Schumann and Mahler songs also won him a BBC Music Magazine Award. In May 2023 a new album featuring Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Kerner Lieder was released by Linn records.

Florian Boesch received his initial vocal training from Ruthilde Boesch, after which came his studies in Lied and oratorio with Robert Holl in Vienna. Florian Boesch holds a professorship at the University of Music and Drama in Vienna.