Andreas Scholl

"In the three Handel solo cantatas – all about the ecstasies and the agonies of love – Scholl was storyteller supreme, daring his audience to stay fully engaged for every compelling second"
Hilary Finch, The Times, June 13 2006

Andreas Scholl has released a series of extraordinary solo recordings. Heroes, a disc of arias by Handel, Mozart, Hasse and Gluck; Robert Dowland's A Musicall Banquet; Vivaldi Motets with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra; Wayfaring Stranger, a selection of specially arranged English and American folksongs with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; and Arcadia, a collection of rare and unpublished cantatas by composers from Rome’s Arcadian Circle, are all released on the Decca label. Also on Decca is the outstanding Arias for Senesino album for which he won the 2006 Classical Brit Singer of the Year award. His discography also includes Solomon and Saul under Paul McCreesh for Deutsche Grammophon and he features on the soundtrack of the film version of The Merchant of Venice. Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Monteverdi's Orfeo and 1610 Vespers, and Gramophone Awardwinning recordings of Vivaldi's Stabat Mater and Caldara's Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo are all on Harmonia Mundi as is his latest recording, a collection of cantatas by Handel, entitled Il duello amoroso. A committed recital artist Andreas Scholl performs in the world's leading concert halls and festivals, and concert performances have included appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Freiburger Barockorchester and Münchner Philharmoniker. He made his operatic début as Bertarido (Rodelinda) at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and last season made his critically acclaimed début at The Metropolitan Opera in the same role. He is a regular performer at the BBC Proms, making history as both the first counter-tenor and the first German to sing at the Last Night in 2005.

Season highlights include a programme of Handel Cantatas with Accademia Bizantina and Messiah with Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of William Christie. On the opera stage he will appear as Giulio Cesare at Opera de Lausanne.

Born in Germany, Andreas Scholl's early musical training was with the Kiedricher Chorbuben. He later went on to study under Richard Levitt and René Jacobs at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He is a winner of the 1999 ECHO Awards, Prix de l'Union de la Presse Musicale Belge and the Middle Ages / Renaissance category of the 2002 Edison Awards for his recording of A Musicall Banquet. He won a second ECHO Award in 2005 for his composition of music for Deutsche Grammophon's audiobook of Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes and The Nightingale.