Thomas Quasthoff

Thomas Quasthoff ( born November 9, 1959 in Hildesheim ) is a German bass-baritone and professor of singing at the Academy of Music " Hanns Eisler" Berlin.

Childhood, education

Quasthoff was born with a thalidomide damage. He is 1.34 m tall. In the 2004/2005 resulting Documentary The Dreamer Quasthoff describes how he had to stay in a camp-like residential home for severely handicapped his childhood under vexatious circumstances and how he escaped this isolation with the help of his parents and his two- year-older brother Michael, by this it by any activity excluded, leaving him to participate in a natural way in everyday life. The father recognized early the musical talent of his son and tried to persevere in spite of many resistors, to allow singing lessons for him. The Academy of Music in Hannover rejected him because he could not play second instrument because of her disability. In 1972, he sang as a 13 -year-old at the instigation of his father, the then head of the " chamber music and song" of the NDR Landesfunkhaus Lower Saxony in Hannover, Sebastian Peschko before. Quasthoff had been granted to five minutes - there were 1 ½ hours of it. This opens the way to a vocal training was free and he took in the same year a study singing with Charlotte Lehmann in Hanover. Music theory and music history, he studied with her ​​husband Ernst Huber- Contwig.

After graduation Quasthoff studied six semesters Jura, then broke off his studies and spent six years working in marketing at the savings bank Hildesheim. During this period, he joined both as a jazz singer but also with his cabaret show " light moments " on where he excelled among other voices imitations of politicians like Willy Brandt, Helmut Kohl and Franz Josef Strauss. In 1980, he supported the Hanoverian musician and composer Michael Rietzke with his band " The Locals " and sang two tracks on the debut album. A first LP entitled " Vocal Spirit" played Quasthoff 1986 Edition Collage one on the jazz and gospel sounds dominate and Quasthoff reveals his vocal qualities. When NDR Landesfunkhaus Hanover, he worked from 1980 as a radio presenter and speaker.

Career

His first major singing performance had Quasthoff on 26 February 1984. Manfred Ehrhorn, then musical director of the Studio Choir Brunswick and professor at the University of Music and Theatre in Hanover, encouraged him to his first public appearance as a bass player in Louis Spohr's " Last Things " in the Brunswick St. John's church, accompanied by the choir Studio Braunschweig, and members of the Bach choir Helmstedt and Braunschweig State Orchestra.

1987 Quasthoff sang as a soloist together with the Limburg Cathedral Boys' Choir Mozart's Credo- Messe. 1988 his international breakthrough when he won in his baritone vocal category at the International Music Competition of the ARD. In 1994 he resigned his post at the NDR and started his own business as a freelance artist. Alongside he gave singing lessons.

In 1995, Quasthoff, with the Windsbacher boys' choir for the first time since the Second World War, the entire St. Matthew Passion in Israel.

1996 Quasthoff was appointed professor of singing at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, a position he held until 2004, after which he joined the Academy of Music " Hanns Eisler" Berlin.

In the Carnegie Hall in New York / USA Quasthoff debuted in 1998 with Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn. He has appeared in almost all the major concert halls of the world. Initially he specialized in concert performances and art songs; outstanding here is his interpretation of the song cycle Winterreise by Franz Schubert with pianist Charles Spencer as a companion. A recording of it appeared in 1998. Was followed in 2005 with The Beautiful Miller Justus Zeyen as accompanist on the piano. In the meantime, had Quasthoff reinforced with in opera performances. In 2003 he made ​​his debut as Fernando in Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven during the Easter Festival. He caused a sensation here, among others, in the role of Amfortas in Parsifal by Richard Wagner in the Vienna State Opera.

In 2004 he wrote his autobiography, The Voice, 2006, he put another autobiographical work, The baritone, as a literary addition to the CD Look, my soul before.

In 2006, Quasthoff his first jazz album with Till Bronner, Alan Broadbent, Peter Erskine, Dieter Ilg and Chuck Loeb, which was published in 2007 ( The Jazz Album - Watch what happens ). In October 2006, he gave the complete withdrawal of the opera stage known, in order to devote more his concerts and his teaching can. Since 2010 he is also active as an ambassador for the Christian Blind Mission. In 2010, he also released his album Tell It Like It Is, on which he moves between the areas of soul, rhythm and blues and pop. His companions are, inter alia, Bruno Müller, Frank Chastenier, Dieter Ilg and Wolfgang Haffner.

In October 2011, he announced that he would finally retire to laryngitis on the advice of his doctors of the jazz stage and "give in this genre no more concerts ." On January 11, 2012 it was announced that he finally retires for health reasons as a singer by the stage.

Since November 22, 2012 Quasthoff is in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as festivals, Olivia's fool, on stage at the Berliner Ensemble. Here he shows in addition to singing arts also his acting and comedic talent.

Volunteering

Quasthoff is the Children of Chernobyl Foundation of Lower Saxony since 2003 Patron.

Private

Quasthoff lives in Berlin - Moabit, since 2006 with Claudia Quasthoff, TV journalist at the MDR, married.

Awards

Discography (selection)

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Arias. Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, Jörg Faerber, Sony BMG, September 1997 ( Echo Award 1998)
• Krzysztof Penderecki: Credo. Oregon Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra, Helmuth Rilling. Hänssler, September 1998. ( Grammy for best choral performance of the year 2000 for Rilling )
• Franz Schubert: Winterreise. With Charles Spencer. BMG, October 1998.
• Gustav Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Anne Sofie von Otter, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado. German Gramophone, April 1999 ( first Grammy ).
• Brahms and Liszt: Lieder. With Justus Zeyen. German Gramophone, February 2000 ( Grammy nominated ).
• Schubert's swan song and Brahms ' Four Serious Songs. With Justus Zeyen ( Prize of the German Record Critics' Award, 2001/3 ).
• Schubert songs. With Anne Sofie von Otter, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Claudio Abbado. German Gramophone, April 2003 (second Grammy ).
• Bach Cantatas: solo recording with the Berlin Baroque Soloists, members of the RIAS Chamber Choir, Rainer Kussmaul. German Grammophon, 2004 ( third Grammy ).
• Franz Schubert: The Beautiful Miller. With Justus Zeyen. German Grammophon 2005.
• Arnold Schoenberg: Gurrelieder. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Simon Rattle. EMI, April 2006.
• Look at my soul. Staatskapelle Dresden, Sebastian Weigle. German Grammophon, 2006.
• The Voice. Works by Brahms, Liszt, Lortzingstraße, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Weber, Heine, Rückert, Chezy. German Gramophone, May 2006.
• Watch what happens. The Jazz Album. Jazz standards, with Till Bronner. German Gramophone, March 2007.
• Joseph Haydn: The Creation. Annette Dasch, Christoph Strehl, Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Choir, Adam Fischer. DVD, Medici Arts, October 2009.
• Tell it like it is. Soul, R'n'B and pop standards. German Gramophone, September 2010.

Quotes

"I would be a bad teacher, when I create an oasis of bliss for my students and do they know what to expect after college. As such, I am strict. "

" Many people think that a disabled person has to suffer but be sad and desperate. But I 'm not. The despair I have behind me, I am very life-affirming. And I try to make it easy for people to deal with me. "

" A soloist will only have a chance if he's really good. "

" In Germany live 80 million people with disabilities. I have the advantage that you look at me. "

"I have no problem with that, even if one makes jokes about me. Question: What is a wheelchair user to ten cannibals? Answer: Meals on Wheels. - I've learned to laugh at me. "

"I know students who can do a better. His charisma is expandable. It looks just like the effort to correct. The art of great singing is that you just do not see the effort. Potts is like the antithesis to what I teach my students. "