Artists biographies
Matthias Goerne

Matthias Goerne has won international acclaim with his warm and flexible baritone voice and his profound interpretations. As a musical vocalist of the first water he is a regular guest to the renowned festivals and in the famous concert halls of the world, such as the Carnegie Hall in New York and the Wigmore Hall in London. Eminent pianists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif-Ove Andsnes, Alfred Brendel, Christoph Eschenbach and Elisabeth Leonskaja are some of his musical partners.

Goerne works together with the leading orchestras and conductors, amongst others, with the top American orchestras such as Chicago Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony as well as the Orchestra National de France, Orchestra de Paris, London Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmonikern (Philharmonic Orchestra) and the Dresdner Staatskapelle (State Orchestra). Tours and guest performances lead Matthias Goerne in the season of 2008/09 through the whole of Europe, in the USA and also to Asia (Hong Kong Festival, Seoul, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur).

Since his opera debut at the “Salzburger Festspielen” (Salzburg Festival) – 1997 in the role of Papageno under Christoph von Dohnaeyni – Goerne is a guest to the largest opera stages in the world, amongst others, to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Opernahus (Opera House) Zurich, the Drsesdner Semperoper, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan. The spectrum of the roles carefully chosen by him range from Papageno and Wolfram right up to the title songs in Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” and Aribert Reimann’s “Lear”. During the season of 2006/07, Matthias Goerne was heard at the Opernhaus (Opera House) Zurich (Sebastiano in “Tiefland” (low land)) and at the German Opera in Berlin (Kurwenal in “Tristan und Isolde”). During the 2007/08 season, he sings the Wolfram in “Tannhaeuser” at the Opera National de Paris and the Orest in ‘Elektra’ with Maggio Musicale in Florence, under the directorship of Seiji Ozawa. For the forthcoming season, Matthias Goerne has been invited to the most renowned opera houses and festivals, including the “Salzburger Festspiele” (Salzburg Festival), the “Opéra National de Paris” (Paris National Opera), the “Wiener Staatsoper” (Vienna State Opera House) and the “Metropolitan Opera” (Wozzeck).

The successful performance of Goerne has been documented in numerous CD recordings, some of which have been crowned with multiple awards. Some of the latest recordings include Zemlinsky’s “Lyrische Symphonie” (Lyrical Symphony) with the Orchestre de Paris (Orchestra of Paris). During the course of the next few years Goerne will record a series of CDs with selected Schubert songs (Goerne / Schubert edition) for Harmonia Mundi.

Matthias Goerne is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music London. He has taught as an honorary professor for song composition at the Robert Schumann High School in Duesseldorf from 2001 to 2004. The Weimar-born studied at Hans-Joachim Beyer in Leipzig, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.