Florian Boesch, Baritone

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Terrace Theater

Schumann and Schubert lieder. Full Program >

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The Austrian baritone, Florian Boesch, gave his outstanding recital-debut in 2002 at the well known Schubertiade festival in Schwarzenberg/Austria, followed by recitals throughout the world from Japan to the USA.

Florian Boesch has appeared with the Vienna Chamber Opera and in a number of Mozart operas, singing Figaro, Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Leporello, Guglielmo and Papageno at the Klagenfurt Stadttheater, the Vienna Volksoper, Opernhaus Zürich, Wuppertal Theater, Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow and at Tokyo`s Bunkamura Orchard Hall. He has been heard at the festival of Bregenz and sang Richard Strauss` Polizeikommissar in Der Rosenkavalier and Antonio in Le Nozze Di Figaro under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, both at the Salzburg Festival. Boesch has regularly been invited by the Theater an der Wien where he did the Mozart Requiem with the Hamburg Ballett and the world premiere of Bernhard Lang`s opera I Hate Mozart. Boesch recently debuted with the Hamburgische Staatsoper where he sang Tiridate in Georg Frideric Handel`s Radamisto under conductor Martin Haselböck. He has appeared at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Musikverein, Wiener Konzerthaus, Konzerthaus Berlin, KKL Luzern, Auditorium Milano di Giuseppe Verdi or Münchner Philharmonie.

Florian Boesch is also a frequent guest on the concert platform, with a repertoire that ranges from J.S. Bach to Wolf and Gustav Mahler. As an acclaimed singer of Lieder he has appeared at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Cologne Philharmonic, the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts, and in Birmingham. He has sung Schubert’s Winterreise in New York City, Tokyo, Leeds, Vienna and Graz, and given recitals at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Wigmore Hall in London, as well as in the BBC Radio 3 lunchtime recitals series. Engagements have taken him also to the Styriarte Festival, the Haydn Festival Eisenstadt, and to Milan and Los Angeles.

Roger Vignoles is internationally recognised as one of the world’s most distinguished piano accompanists and musicians of today. He regularly partners the finest singers in major venues around the world and is regarded as a leading authority on the song repertoire. Roger Vignoles was inspired to pursue a career as a piano accompanist by the playing of Gerald Moore.

Having read Music at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he joined the Royal Opera House as a repetiteur and then completed his training with the renowned Viennese-born teacher Paul Hamburger. Since then, reviewers worldwide have consistently recognised his distinctive qualities, likening Roger to “that Gerald Moore accompanist incarnate—but with better sound— truly without peer these days” (Audiophile Audition). In the course of his distinguished career he has collaborated with such leading singers as Elisabeth Söderström, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Thomas Allen, Barbara Bonney, Kathleen Battle, Christine Brewer, Brigitte Fassbaender, Bernarda Fink, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Dame Felicity Lott, Mark Padmore, John Mark Ainsley, Joan Rodgers and Sarah Walker. He performs regularly at major venues across the world such as the Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Cologne, Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein, the Royal Concertgebouw, Musee d’Orsay, Carnegie Hall and the Frick Collection in New York, La Scala in Milan, Frankfurt Oper, Théatre des Champs-Élysées, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Bonn Beethovenfest and Teatro del Zarzuela in Madrid. Recently, he also made extended tours to Japan with Mihoko Fujimura, and to North America with Measha Brueggergosman and Kate Royal.

Roger Vignoles is frequently invited to devise and direct programmes and festivals of song. He has created several series at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, including “Young Brahms”, “Landscape into Song” (a celebration of Schubert) and “Scenes from Schumann”. From 1998 to 2002 he was artistic director of the Nagaoka Winter Festival in Japan. He is currently the artistic director of Sommer Lied Weinberg in Upper Austria, the Ciclo de Lied Galega at Santiago de Compostela in Spain and the Tetbury Festival in England. In 2009/10 he presented a series of Strauss songs recitals at the Wigmore Hall. His extensive discography includes many highly-acclaimed recordings, from German Lieder and French Melodies to Spanish Canciones and Cabaret Songs: Schumann and Brahms with Bernarda Fink on Harmonia Mundi; the ongoing Hyperion Strauss series with Christine Brewer, Anne Schwanewilms, Andrew Kennedy, Christopher Maltman and Alastair Miles; and Schubert’s Schwanengesang with Robert Holl on Hyperion. His recent recording of Britten’s Winter Words and Holy sonnets of John Donne, Before Life and After, with Mark Padmore on Harmonia Mundi received the prestigious Diapason d’Or and Prix Caecilia awards in 2009.

Roger Vignoles is recognised internationally as an outstanding teacher and has given masterclasses in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Montreal and Toronto. He is a regular visitor to the University of Indiana, Bloomington, as well as to the Britten-Pears Young Artists’ Programme at Snape. Roger is Prince Consort Professor of Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music in London and has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Magdalene College, Cambridge honoris causa ('as a mark of honour').

Highlights in 2010/11 include recitals with Elīna Garanča in Baden-Baden, with Elizabeth Watts at the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, with John Mark Ainsley at Oper Frankfurt, with Miah Persson at Tonhalle, Zurich, Wigmore Hall and Wiener Konzerthaus, and with Alek Shrader at Spivey Hall, Atlanta. At the Wigmore Hall he performs with with Christine Brewer, Christine Rice, Florian Boesch and Renata Pokupić and UK appearances at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Bath Mozartfest, Oxford Lieder and Cheltenham Festivals. In 2011/12 Roger Vignoles will curate his own song recital series at the Wigmore Hall, a North American tour with Florian Boesch and a European tour with Elīna Garanča. Roger Vignoles is represented by Intermusica.