For almost four decades, German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff has set the standard on international stages, moving the hearts of countless listeners with his artistry, before he ended his outstanding career as a singer in 2012. However, he has retained his close ties to singing and music as a teacher at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin and in various master classes, as a recitalist and speaker at concerts, readings, and with his jazz-projects.
Quasthoff was a frequent guest of the leading orchestras like the Berlin and the Vienna Philharmonics at all major music venues, working closely with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Helmuth Rilling, Christian Thielemann and Franz Welser-Möst. Having dedicated himself to Lied for many years, he founded the “Das Lied” International Song Competition in 2009, which will take place next time in February 2023.
Quasthoff has proved more than once during recent years that he enjoys rising to new challenges, and thus he is again doing Jazz-concerts on tour together with some internationally renowned instrumentalists: Simon Oslender (piano), Dieter Ilg (double bass) and Wolfgang Haffner (drums). They were highly acclaimed in prestigious venues such as Zurich, Vienna, Budapest, Madrid, St. Petersburg, Essen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Rheingau Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Tsinandali Festival and many others.
His numerous CDs have received many awards, three of them the coveted “Grammy” award. The most recent jazz album NiceʼnʼEasy has been released in May 2018 by Sony Music. It contains a diverse programme of jazz classics with the celebrated NDR Bigband – The Hamburg Radio Jazz Orchestra and his trio partners Frank Chastenier, Dieter Ilg and Wolfgang Haffner.
Quasthoff received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Culture Prize for Music at the Dresden Frauenkirche, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the Gold Medal of London’s Wigmore Hall. In addition, he was conferred the title of Österreichischer Kammersänger in 2009.