Sebastian Kohlhepp - NOSPR

German tenor Sebastian Kohlhepp is one of the most widely hailed singers of his generation, much in demand on the international opera and concert scene.
He achieved outstanding success in his acclaimed début as David in Wagner’s Meistersinger under the baton of Christian Thielemann at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2019, and he took up the same role in early 2020 at the Semper Opera House in Dresden, thrilling the audience and the press.
Sebastian Kohlhepp was born in Limburg, where he received his initial musical training at the local boys’ choir. After his studies with Hedwig Fassbender in Frankfurt, he was successively engaged as a member of the ensembles in Karlsruhe, Vienna, and Stuttgart. He has been freelancing since the 2017/18 season.
In recent years, Sebastian Kohlhepp has been making himself a name as a well-versed Mozart tenor. He has sung Tamino at the Theater an der Wien (under René Jacobs), at Theater Basel, and the Vienna Volksoper; he gave his début as Belmonte at the Salzburg Mozart Week, covered the role of Don Ottavio in Cologne, and recently sang the role of Ferrando in Così fan tutte (under Ivor Bolton) at Dutch National Opera. In the 2020/21 season, Sebastian Kohlhepp will return as Tamino in a new staging of The Magic Flute at the Semper Opera House in Dresden.
Sebastian Kohlhepp is likewise much in international demand as a concert soloist. In the summer of 2018, he gave his Salzburg Festival début appearance in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony conducted by Teodor Currentzis. In December of the same year, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor Andris Nelsons invited him to perform in the United States. To roll in the year 2020, he was featured live on German television (ZDF) in a concert version of Lehár’s The Land of Smiles in the traditional New Year’s Eve performance with the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Christian Thielemann.
Sebastian Kohlhepp makes regular appearances with renowned orchestras and ensembles, including the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the RIAS Chamber Choir (Berlin), Collegium Vocale Gent, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the NDR Choir (Hamburg), the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Gaechinger Cantorey (Stuttgart), and the Stuttgart Chamber Choir. He collaborates with eminent conductors such as Philipp Ahmann, Sylvain Cambreling, Pablo Heras-Casado, Ádám Fischer, Alexander Liebreich, François-Xavier Roth, Christophe Rousset, Andreas Spering, and Lorenzo Viotti. He has been invited to perform in major venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Philharmonic Halls in Paris, Berlin, and Cologne, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, Shanghai Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Rheingau and Schleswig-Holstein Music Festivals, and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad.
Concert projects for the 2020/21 season included Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Andris Nelsons, a series of concerts at the Salzburg Festival with the Mozarteum Orchestra under the baton of Ivor Bolton, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis conducted by Kent Nagano, performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival, and a scenic version of the St. Matthew Passion at the Deutsche Oper Berlin under the baton of Alessandro De Marchi.
A great number of CD, DVD, and radio broadcast recordings put Sebastian Kohlhepp’s multifarious talents on display. René Jacobs’s recording of Bach’s St. John Passion (Harmonia Mundi), with Sebastian Kohlhepp as aria tenor, received the 2017 ICMA Award in the Baroque vocal category. Two of his most recent releases include Beethoven’s Missa solemnis under Frieder Bernius for the Carus label and a live recording of Carl Maria von Weber’s early opera Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn with Vienna RSO for Capriccio.