Barbara Hendricks

Barbara Hendricks stands among the foremost sopranos of her era, having distinguished herself through performances on leading opera stages and in recital settings alike. Her dedication to humanitarian efforts has accompanied an unusually extended trajectory as both performer and recording artist.

Born November 20, 1948, in Stephens, Arkansas, Hendricks studied voice during childhood and performed numerous solos. She completed her secondary education with honors at Horace Mann High School in Little Rock before obtaining a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and chemistry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Following attendance at the Aspen Music Festival summer program, she gained admission to New York’s Juilliard School of Music, where she worked with Jennie Tourel. Over the ensuing years she captured several significant prizes, among them the Grand Prize and the Mozart Prize at the 1972 Concours International de Paris, and she received a bachelor’s degree in voice from Juilliard in 1973.

Multiple decisive advances occurred for Hendricks in 1974: a recital debut at Town Hall in New York, operatic appearances with the San Francisco Symphony in the role of Erisbe in Cavalli’s Ormindo and at Glyndebourne Opera in Britain, a first engagement with the Chicago Symphony under Georg Solti, and a recording of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with the Cleveland Orchestra led by Lorin Maazel. She relocated to Europe in 1977 and has remained there, marrying producer Martin Engström in 1981; the couple has three children, one of whom is named Jennie, and Hendricks holds Swedish citizenship.

She has performed at nearly every major opera house worldwide, among them the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Paris Opéra, La Scala in Milan, Italy, and Covent Garden in London. A broad command of German lieder complements her extensive recital activity alongside such noted collaborators as András Schiff, Peter Serkin, Radu Lupu, and, with growing frequency in recent decades, Love Derwinger, with whom she has frequently recorded on her own Arte Verum label.

During the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s, Hendricks presented peace concerts in Sarajevo and Dubrovnik; in 1998 she established the Barbara Hendricks Foundation For Peace and Reconciliation. She has promoted contemporary repertoire, giving premieres of works by composers including David Del Tredici, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Arvo Pärt. Jazz also forms part of her activity; in 1981 she released an album of Gershwin songs with the piano duo Katia & Marielle Labèque. More than eighty recordings stand to her credit, issued principally on Arte Verum since the label’s inception. She has sustained a vigorous schedule well into later life, releasing in 2023 an album of Berlioz orchestral songs with the Pori Sinfonietta. Recognition has continued; in 1993 French president François Mitterand named her a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.