Lydia Teuscher, soprano
with Graham Johnson, piano

Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Terrace Theater

Works of Haydn, Strauss, Mendelssohn, Schumann and more. Full Program >

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Lydia Teuscher was born in Freiburg, Germany and studied at the Welsh College of Music and Drama and at the Hochschule für Musik in Mannheim, Germany. She has appeared with the Göttingen Handel Festival, the Stadttheater in Heidelberg and the National Theater Mannheim. In September 2006 she has joined the Semperoper/Sächsische Staatsoper in Dresden as a resident artist where her roles include Pamina, Susanna, Annchen, Valencienne and Gretel.

She has appeared with the Bavarian State Opera as Ighino in the new production of “Palestrina” and as Pamina, the Glyndebourne Festival as Gretel and Cherubino and the Aix-en-Provence festival and the Salzburg Mozartwoche with Rene Jacobs as Pamina. In concert she appears with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich with David Zinman and Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie.

On the concert platform she sang with Graham Johnson in recital in London, Cologne and Antwerp, with Helmuth Rilling and the Bachakademie Stuttgart, the Ludwigsburger Festspiele, Kammer-musikfestival Schloss Moritzburg, the Hamburg Camerata, the Barockorchester L’Arco, the Fronteras Festival London and The Sao Paolo Roberto Monczuk Festival. Most recently she has appeared with the Hanover Band in Brighton and London, with the Gürzenich Orchester, Cologne and Markus Stenz, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington, with Double Bande and Rene Jacobs (with whom she has also recorded Telemann’s Brockes Messe), and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London and on a tour to Korea and Japan. She has toured Canada with Bernard Labadie and has toured Europe with Ton Koopman and Amsterdam Baroque

Graham Johnson, piano

Graham Johnson is recognized as one of the world’s leading vocal accompanists. Born in Rhodesia, he came to London to study in 1967. After leaving the Royal Academy of Music his teachers included Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons. In 1972 he was the official pianist at Peter Pears' first masterclasses at The Maltings, Snape which brought him into contact with Benjamin Britten – a link which strengthened his determination to accompany. In 1976 he formed the Songmakers' Almanac to explore neglected areas of piano-accompanied vocal music; the founding singers were Dame Felicity Lott, Ann Murray DBE, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Richard Jackson – artists with whom he has established long and fruitful collaborations both on the concert platform and the recording studio. Some two hundred and fifty Songmakers' programmes were presented over the years. Graham Johnson has accompanied such distinguished singers as Sir Thomas Allen, Victoria de los Angeles, Elly Ameling, Arleen Auger, Ian Bostridge, Brigitte Fassbaender, Matthias Goerne, Thomas Hampson, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager, Philip Langridge, Serge Leiferkus, Christopher Maltman, Edith Mathis, Lucia Popp, Christoph Prégardien, Dame Margaret Price, Thomas Quastoff, Dorothea Röschmann, Kate Royal, Peter Schreier, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Sarah Walker.

His relationship with the Wigmore Hall is a special one. He devised and accompanied concerts in the hall’s re-opening series in 1992, and in its centenary celebrations in 2001. He has been Chairman of the jury for the Wigmore Hall Song Competition since its inception. He is Senior Professor of Accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and has led a biennial program for Young Songmakers since 1985. He has had a long and fruitful link with Ted Perry and Hyperion Records for whom he has devised and accompanied a set of complete Schubert Lieder on 37 discs, a milestone in the history of recording. A complete Schumann series is halfway completed, and there is an ongoing French Song series where the complete songs of such composers as Chausson, Chabrier and Fauré are either already available, or in preparation. All these discs are issued with Graham Johnson’s own program notes which set new standards for CD annotations. He has also recorded for Sony, BMG, Harmonia Mundi, Forlane, EMI and DGG. Awards include the Gramophone solo vocal award in 1989 (with Dame Janet Baker), 1996 (Die schone Müllerin with Ian Bostridge), 1997 (for the inauguration of the Schumann series with Christine Schäfer) and 2001 (with Magdalena Kozena). He was The Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 1998; in June 2000 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He is author of The Songmakers’ Almanac; Twenty Years of Recitals in London, The French Song Companion and The Vocal Music of Benjamin Britten.

He was made an OBE in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours list and in 2002 he was created Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Government.