Ingrid Schmithüsen

The German soprano Ingrid Schmithüsen built a lengthy career centered on art song through her enduring collaboration with pianist Thomas Palm, while also proving herself a versatile artist across an unusually broad spectrum of styles and historical eras. Born in Aachen in what was then West Germany in 1960, she began voice instruction at a young age and delivered her first recital at eighteen, prior to enrolling at the Cologne University of Music. Among her instructors was baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the leading German lieder singer of that era, and her work has remained rooted in the art-song repertoire ever since. She formed her longstanding partnership with Palm in 1982 yet has collaborated as well with pianists such as Brigitte Poulin and with various harpsichordists in Baroque repertoire; her programs extend from Monteverdi through Messiaen and new music, and she ranks among the rare non-Anglophone singers who have made a specialty of Charles Ives. Schmithüsen has appeared frequently in oratorio and other orchestral-vocal works with ensembles including the Dresden Philharmonic, La Petite Bande, and the Bach Collegium Japan; the last of these invited her to participate in several volumes of Masaaki Suzuki’s complete Bach cantata cycle on the BIS label. Her recording activity has encompassed German Romantic composer Johanna Kinkel’s An Imaginary Voyage Through Europe and, in 2018, Italian Baroque composer Pietro Torri’s La Vanità del Mundo, with releases appearing on Wergo, Harmonia Mundi, and Canada’s Analekta. She founded and continues to direct the Cologne concert series Im Zentrum LIED, which since 2006 has explored a new thematic focus each year. European festivals that have regularly engaged her include the Wiener Festwochen, Ars Musica Brussels, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.