Christoph Prégardien · Liedgestaltung

BIOGRAPHY

His clear and precise voice leading as well as his intelligent diction, coupled with his ability to get to the psychological core of a role, make Christoph Prégardien one of the most important lyric tenors of our time. His work as a lied singer is particularly appreciated. At the beginning of the 2022–2023 season, he appeared with his longtime piano partner Michael Gees in a BBC Lunchtime concert at London's Wigmore Hall, before the duo toured Japan with all three Schubert cycles. In other recitals, Christoph Prégardien can be heard with Roger Vignoles at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, with Julius Drake at the Konzerthaus Wien, at the Théâtre de l'Athénée Paris and at the Schwetzinger Festspiele, and with Stefan Litwin on tour in the USA. Together with his son Julian Prégardien he gave father & son concerts at Oxford Lieder, at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées Paris. He also performed Mahler Lieder with the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra under Jonathan Darlington and Schubert arrangements of Brahms, Reger, Berlioz and Webern with the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies. At the end of the season, Christoph Prégardien was once again in the spotlight at Wigmore Hall , then as the focus artist of the London Konzerthaus. In addition to two recitals with Stefan Litwin and Julius Drake, he performed there a special Handel program prepared with the baroque violinist Leila Schayegh and her ensemble La Centifolia, which was also heard a short time later at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Christoph Prégardien frequently appears as a soloist with major international orchestras. He has performed with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France as well as the Boston and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras and has worked with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Ingo Metzmacher and Christian Thielemann. His orchestral repertoire includes the great oratorios and passions from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, as well as works from the 17th and 20th centuries. His operatic roles include Tamino, Almaviva, Fenton (Falstaff), Don Ottavio, Titus, Ulisse and Idomeneo.

His many years of experience as a singer of the great Evangelist roles and his intensive collaboration with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Riccardo Chailly, Philippe Herreweghe, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Fabio Luisi and John Eliot Gardiner are ideal prerequisites for Christoph Prégardien to approach this repertoire also as a conductor. Since the international success of his conducting debut in 2012 with the Ensemble Le Concert Lorrain and the Nederlands Kamerkoor, he has regularly led renowned ensembles such as the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, the Dresdner Kammerchor, the Collegium Vocale Gent and the RIAS Kammerchor.

The singer has documented a large part of his repertoire on more than 150 recordings, awarded, among others, the Orphée d'Or of the Académie du Disque Lyrique, the Edison Award, the Cannes Classical Award and the Diapason d'Or. On the Challenge label, after Schubert's Schwanengesang (with Andreas Staier) and Die schöne Müllerin (with Michael Gees) – honored, among others, as Gramophone magazine's Editor's Choice and with the MIDEM Record of the Year Award - he released Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch (with Julia Kleiter), Between Life and Death, Wanderer, the Grammy-nominated new recording of Winterreise (all with Michael Gees), and Father and Son with his son Julian Prégardien. The Schubert CD Poetisches Tagebuch (with Julius Drake) was awarded the 2016 German Record Critics' Prize. Recent CDs include cantatas by Telemann and Bach recorded with the Vox Orchestra for Sony, in which he is heard for the first time as a baritone, and a new recording of Schumann's Dichterliebe and Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder (with Michael Gees) released on Challenge in 2019. A collaboration with the Warsaw Chopin Institute has also resulted in a CD recorded with Christoph Schnackertz of songs by Paderewski, Moniuszko, and Duparc, as well as a new recording of Schubert's Schwanengesang and Schumann's Liederkreis op. 39 (with Julius Drake).

An important aspect of Christoph Prégardien's musical life is his pedagogical work. After several years at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Zürich, he has been teaching as a professor at the Musikhochschule Köln since 2004, in addition to giving master classes worldwide.