Andreas Scholl

"Andreas Scholl has the world’s most cultured counter-tenor voice. And during his three Handel arias [at the Last Night of the Proms] some 6,000 people scarcely dared breathe, let alone pop balloons, beep hooters, toss streamers... After Scholl returned in the even noisier second half and pulled off the same trick with a pianissimo folksong and a Purcell air, I would have backed him to have walked on water."

– Richard Morrison, The Times, 12 September 2005





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of specially arranged English and American folksongs with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Arcadia, a collection of rare and unpublished cantatas by composers from Rome’s Arcadian Circle with Accademia Bizantina; and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with Les Talens Lyriques and Barbara Bonney ­are all released on the Decca label. His discography also includes Solomon and Saul with the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh for DGG, Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Monteverdi's Orfeo and 1610 Vespers, and Gramophone Award-winning recordings of Vivaldi's Stabat Mater and Caldara's Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo, all under Rene Jacobs, on Harmonia Mundi. He also features on the soundtrack of the film version of The Merchant of Venice which stars Al Pacino. His latest solo release is Arias for Senesino for Decca.



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, Accademia Bizantina, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Freiburger Barockorchester and Münchner Philharmoniker. His operatic début as Bertarido (Rodelinda) for Glyndebourne Festival Opera was greeted with unprecedented critical acclaim. He appears regularly at the BBC Proms, making history as both the first counter-tenor and the first German to perform at the Last Night in 2005.



Highlights this season include a Europe-wide tour with Accademia Bizantina with a selection of opera arias from Arias for Senesino, and his début at New York’s Metropolitan Opera singing the role of Bertarido. In 2006/07 he will sing Giulio Cesare at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and will perform in a staged version of the St John Passion at Théâtre du Châtelet.



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 this year for his composition of music for DG's audio-book of Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes and The Nightingale.



2005/06