Jury
Jury
- Thomas Cooley, Tenor | USA
- Friedrich Haider, Conductor | Austria
- Brigitte Lindner, soprano | Germany
- Marjana Lipovsek, mezzo-soprano | Slovenia
- Hein Mulders, Artistic Director | Netherlands
- François Le Roux, Baritone | France
- Kai Wessel, countertenor (jury chair) | Germany
Brigitte Lindner
Brigitte Lindner already appeared as a soloist with the world-famous record company EMI-Electrola during her studies at the Munich Academy of Music, for example in the opera "Hansel and Gretel" under the direction of Heinz Wallberg, "Die Zauberflöte" under Bernhard Haitink, and others. Her vocal development was accompanied by Hanna Scholl-Völker, Helen Donath and Nicolai Gedda. Her first permanent engagement took her to the Staatstheater in Braunschweig, where she sang roles such as "Gretel", "Maria" (Westside Story), "Valencienne" (The Merry Widow) and others.
Under the direction of Giuseppe Sinopoli, she sang the "Shepherd Boy" in Wagner's "Tannhäuser" at the Bayreuth Festival under the direction of Wagner's grandson Wolfgang Wagner and appeared several times at the Ludwigsburg Festival under Wolfgang Gönnenwein. This was followed by a career as an opera singer, which took her to many stages in Germany and abroad and resulted in numerous CD productions for EMI-Electrola, the Dabringhaus and Grimm label and CPO. As a partner of René Kollo and Francisco Araiza, she has performed at gala evenings, including at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and the Kölner Philharmonie. Numerous radio recordings with WDR, BR, NDR and Deutsch landradio followed. Brigitte Lindner also presented the DLF program "Klassik, Pop etc.". She has worked with first-class colleagues such as Helen Donath, Anneliese Rothenberger, Gabriele Schnaut, Nicolai Gedda, Hermanna Prey, Lucia Popp and others.
She has also performed with outstanding conductors, including Karlheinz Bloemeke, Willi Boskovsky, Klaus Donath, Peter Falk, Michail Jurowsky, Toshiyki Kamioka, Bernhard Klee, Willi Mattes and Enrique Ricci, to name but a few. In addition to her artistic activities, she has always been committed to teaching. From 2002 to 2009, she taught singing classes at the Cologne University of Music in Aachen and Wuppertal. In 2009, she was appointed Professor of Singing and Vocal Pedagogy at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. She gives master classes and is a jury member at competitions. She has developed an additional spectrum by studying EDU - Kinesthetics and Music Kinesiology. She holds courses and lectures in these links between kinesiology, singing and music. Since September 2014 Brigitte Lindner is president of the "BDG-Stiftung Gesang" of the Bundesverband deutscher Gesangspädagogen (BDG).
Hein Mulders
Hein Mulders has been Artistic Director of Oper Köln since the 2022/23 season. After successfully completing his studies in art history, musicology and opera history in Amsterdam, among others, he began working in the vocal department of a leading music agency in The Hague as assistant to the management. He then took on the position of orchestra director of the Dutch National Youth Orchestra. In 1995 Hein Mulders joined the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp/Ghent as casting officer and one year later became part of the management team as head of casting and artistic planning. In the summer of 2006, he moved to the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam as Opera Director. From 2013 to 2022, he was Artistic Director of the Aalto-Musiktheater Essen, the Philharmonie Essen and the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra, when these three divisions of Theater und Philharmonie Essen (TUP) came under one management for the first time. Hein Mulders is a jury member of numerous international singing competitions.
François Le Roux
François Le Roux studied singing with François Loup, Vera Rosza and Elizabeth Grümmer. His international career began in 1978 when he won both the Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona and the International Singing Competition in Rio de Janeiro.
François Le Roux was a permanent member of the Lyon Opera ensemble from 1980 to 1985. This was followed by guest engagements at major European opera houses such as Paris, Milan's La Scala, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Zurich, London (Covent Garden), Venice, Vienna, Los Angeles and festivals as well as Schwetzingen, Glyndebourne, Aix en Provence and Santa Fe (USA).
François Le Roux's wide-ranging repertoire includes the most important opera roles from Monteverdi (Orfeo, Ulisse...), Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, to Ravel, Poulenc, Bizet, Gounod and Massenet.
In 1987, for his first Don Giovanni as the title role, he won the "Prix de la Critique" in Paris.
The critics wrote about his portrayal of Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande: "...the best Pelléas in 30 years...". He has now sung this role over a hundred times worldwide and has also recorded it for Deutsche Grammophon under Claudio Abbado with the Vienna Philharmonic. He has been singing Golaud in the same opera since 1998, with great success. He sang it for the anniversary performance of the opera on April 30, 2002 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, conducted by Marc Minkowski.
He has also participated in several world premieres by David Lang, Harrison Birtwistle, Hans Werner Henze and Hans-Jürgen von Bose.
François Le Roux is regarded as an ideal interpreter of French song, his partners in recitals are the pianists Pascal Rogé, Graham Johnson, Jeff Cohen and Olivier Godin.
In addition, François Le Roux has made a number of recordings, including a complete recording of the songs of Duparc and Fauré. He has recorded for DECCA-Universal, HYPERION, EMI, PASSAVANT Music, CHANT DU MONDE and LIGIA Digital. His recording of the Albert Roussel songs with orchestra (on BMG-RCA) was awarded the most prestigious French Record Prize (Académie Charles Cros) in 1999, and his latest recording of Henri Dutilleux Intégrale des Mélodies (on PASSAVANT Music) won the Michel Garcin Prize of the Académie du disque lyrique Français in Paris in 2016.
Since 1990, François Le Roux has given master classes on the interpretation of French song in Saint Jean-de-Luz (Académie Ravel), Lyon (Atelier Lyrique de l'Opéra and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique), in the U.S.A. (Cleveland Art Song Festival), in Finland (Sibelius Academy Helsinki), among others. He is the Artistic Director of the "French Song Academy Francis Poulenc" in Tours since 1997. In 1996, he had the honor to receive the French National Degree "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres", and in 1997 he was named "Musical Personality of the Year" by the French Critics Society. His first book, Le Chant intime, on the interpretation of French song (Fayard, Paris, August 2004, and, in English, Oxford University Press, 2021), written with Romain Raynaldy, was awarded the "René Dumesnil Prize 2004" by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. His second book, also with Romain Raynaldy, L'opéra français-une question de style, on the interpretation of French opera, has been published (editor Hermann) since 2019.
He was a voice teacher at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in 2015, and has been teaching at the Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot in Paris for 10 years.
Kai Wessel
"Enchantingly pure" (Opernwelt), "...with sheer endless breath..." (Das Opernglas), "...a high degree of physicality..." (Opernglas) and "...with erotic impetus..." (Norddeutscher Rundfunk): Kai Wessel's singing is described with such attributes and ennobled with "...was one of the most lyrical, natural-sounding, evenly-registered counter-tenors I have ever heard" in the English magazine Opera.
Born in Hamburg, Kai Wessel initially studied music theory (Prof. Roland Ploeger) and composition (Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Döhl) at the Lübeck University of Music, and later also studied singing with Prof. Ute von Garczynski, who discovered and trained his alto voice (concert exam with distinction). At the same time, he studied baroque performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with René Jacobs, whose assistant he was for arrangements of several operas.
He won prizes at the VdMK competition in Berlin (including a special prize from the German Stage Association for the best interpretation of a contemporary work) and the Concours Musica Antiqua at the Flanders Festival in Bruges and received scholarships from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the DAAD (further training with Peter Kooy, Holland).
Kai Wessel is one of the leading representatives of his field, invited by orchestras and conductors all over the world (including Philippe Herreweghe, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhard, Jordi Savall, Ton Koopman, William Christie, Nicholas McGegan, Reinhard Goebel, Mazaaki Suzuki, Martin Haselböck, Michael Schneider, Hermann Max, Michel Corboz, Hans-Werner Henze, Ivan Fischer, Markus Stenz, Kent Nagano, Franz Welser-Möst, Sylvain Cambreling, Arturo Tamayo, Heinz Holliger, Peter Rundel), documented by radio, television and over 100 CD recordings.
Guest appearances have taken him to opera houses in Barcelona, Nice, Hamburg (premiere of B. Friedrich's "Lancelot's Mirror"), Hanover, Berlin (Deutsche Oper, premiere of Isabel Mundry's "Ein Atemzug - Odyssee"), Munich (premiere of Jörg Widmann's "Babylon"), Dresden, Cologne, Stuttgart, Freiburg, St. Gallen and the Theater Basel, where he was a guest artist from 1994 to 2004. There he appeared under the direction of Herbert Wernicke ("Theodora", "Aus Deutschland", "Giulio Cesare", "Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste", "Actus tragicus", "Israel in Egypt"), Joachim Schlömer (as Orfeo in Chr. W. Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" and as Andy in the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth's "Lost Highway"), Karin
Beier and Claus Guth (as the Armenian Boy in the world premiere of Klaus Huber's "Schwarzerde").
He has also appeared in stage productions at festivals for baroque or contemporary music, such as the Handel Festivals in Göttingen (Joacim, Unulfo, Arsace, Giulio Cesare), Halle (Unulfo, Bertarido) and Karlsruhe (Giustino, Cleofe), in Schwetzingen (world premiere of S.Sciarrino "Luci mie traditrici", UA G.F.Haas "Thomas"), Vienna and Salzburg (S.Sciarrino "Luca min traditrici", A.Reimann "Lear"), Amsterdam and Venice (M. Kagel "Aus Deutschland"), Innsbruck, Bregenz (UA G.F. Haas "Die schöne Wunde") and Zurich (UA R. Irman "Poem ohne Held").
Works have been written for his voice by Annette Schlünz, Rebecca Saunders, Karola Obermüller, Chaya Czernowin, Mauricio Kagel, Heinz Holliger, Klaus Huber, Matthias Pintscher, Stefano Gervasoni, Helmut Oehring, Dániel Péter Biró and others.
Kai Wessel is Professor of Singing and Historical Performance Practice for Singers at the
Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. As part of this activity and as a teacher of singing at the Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität (2006-2012), he conducted revivals of Francesco Pistocchi's pastorale "Il Narciso" (WDR 2008/11), Antonio Caldara's oratorio "Il Batista" (WDR 2015) and a revival of the pastorale "La Ninfa contenta" by Giacomo Greber (WDR 2021) under his direction (studies with Jerome Preysinger).
From September 2014 to January 2020, Kai Wessel was also a lecturer in singing with a focus on contemporary vocal literature at the Bern University of the Arts and, in the 2019/20 academic year, interim lecturer in singing at the Haute École de Musique Genève.
Kai Wessel is the editor of numerous Baroque vocal works (J.W. Franck, F.A.M. Pistocchi, J.Ph. Sack, G.Ph. Telemann and others) for Edition Walhall and co-editor of the Schott Campus volume "Der Countertenor".
