Ludwig Obst, tenor

Stefan Paul, piano

Germany / Germany

Ludwig Obst

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The tenor Ludwig Obst (born 1991), who lives in Berlin, was awarded the research grant for the performing arts of the State of Berlin in 2020. In the same year he was invited to perform two recitals there as a prize winner of the Rheinsberg Castle Chamber Opera competition. He began his musical training with the Tölzer Knabenchor and, after graduating from high school, studied singing at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama London. Bernd Riedel, Wolfram Rieger and Júlia Várady were among his teachers. He is currently being looked after by Sami Kustaloglu. Ludwig Obst sang at the Handel Festival in Halle, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, the Munich Biennale and in the carpentry of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2019 he opened the Steirischer Herbst in Graz with Voicers by Zorka Wollny and took part in THE BODY MEMORY at Ballhaus Ost (BAM! Festival) and LOFFT Leipzig. In 2021 he will return to both houses with “Ubi caritas” by Wenzel U. Voecks. Ludwig Obst was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation, the Richard Wagner Association Munich and a Britten Pears Young Artist. In addition to his vocal activities, he studied theater studies at the Free University of Berlin and is increasingly devoting himself to his own dramaturgical work. This is how I AM LIBERATION was born, an interdisciplinary performance that was invited to the Performing Arts Festival in 2019. He is also a founding member of tutti d * amore, the Berlin collective for Berlin oper * ette.

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Stefan Paul

Stefan Paul studied piano in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music. There he received particularly valuable input from Wolfram Rieger, Eric Schneider and Klaus Bäßler, among others. During his studies his love for 20th century music and music theater developed. stefanpaul performs regularly as a song accompanist, was a finalist in the 6th International Competition "Franz Schubert and Modern Music" in Graz in the Lied Duo category in 2006, received a scholarship from the Paula and Albert Salomon Foundation and, together with Hanna Herfurtner, won first place in 2010. Prize at the Paula Salomon Lied Competition, with which he made his debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus in 2012. Since 2003 he has been teaching as a companion in Prof. Axel Bauni's interpretation class for contemporary song at the UdK. In addition to numerous freelance projects, he was active as a musician and performer in various productions at the Volksbühne Berlin between 2008 and 2013, where he worked with Frank Castorf and Vegard Vinge, among others
worked together. In 2009 he directed "The Telephone" and "The Letter" at the English Theater in Berlin. In 2014 he edited the incidental music by Hanns Eisler for Brecht's “Life of Galilei” at the Deutsches Theater Göttingen, directed by Michael von zur Mühlen, with whom he worked in Darmstadt in 2015 for the
Performance series "Debt - A Liberation" collaborated again.

Jeremy Osborne, baritone

Bonnie Wagner, piano

USA / USA

Jeremy Osborne

The American baritone Jeremy Osborne (born 1986) has lived in Germany since 2014, where he is currently studying with soprano Janet Williams and can be seen in numerous performances. He studied at the University of Central Arkansas and the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in the vocal studio of the renowned bass baritone John Shirley-Quirk. Since 2017 he has been singing in the ExtraChor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin in performances such as Christof Loy's production of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane and Frank Castorf's production of the Verdi classic La Forza del Destino.
He has also appeared as a choir assistant at the Komische Oper in Prokofiev's The Love for the Three Oranges and Pierangelo Valtinoni's children's opera The Wizard of Oz.
Since 2017 he has developed a fruitful collaboration with the pianist Bonnie Wagner, with whom he has performed several concerts, primarily with the music of Franz Schubert. In 2017 he sang the Winterreise for the first time, accompanied by Mrs. Wagner, followed by Schwanengesang in 2019. A concert planned for 2020 with exclusively French music will now take place in 2021.

Bonnie Wagner

Bonnie Wagner is a pianist with over 15 years of experience as a solo coach. In 2020 she moved to Krefeld; Before that she worked for eight years in Berlin, first at the Komische Oper Berlin, then at the State Opera Unter den Linden. From 2004 to 2012 she worked in Philadelphia as an opera and vocal coach at the Curtis Institute for Music and as a répétiteur at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Engagements at various festivals brought her to Tanglewood, Chautauqua and Belle-Île-en-Mer in France, among others. Bonnie studied with Martin Katz and graduated from the University of Michigan with a Master of Music. In 2008 she was able to deepen her special knowledge of lied with Helmut Deutsch in Munich.

Anna Padalko, mezzo-soprano

Dimitri Grigoriev, piano

Russia / Russia

Anna Padalko

Anna Padalko was born on August 7th, 1992 in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Her musical career began in 1998 in a music school. Later she switched to the Rimskij-Korsakov Music School, which she graduated with honors in the subject "Choral Conducting". In 2011-2016 she studied at the Petersburg Conservatory in the same subject, which she also graduated with honors. At the same time, she continuously took singing lessons and also developed herself as a singer. From 2012-2019 she was a soloist with the Petersburg Concert Choir. Since 2015 Anna Padalko has appeared regularly as a soloist in Russia and Germany. Her repertoire includes Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Bach's St. John Passion, Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor, Zelenka's Missa Dei Patris, Vivaldi's Gloria, Mozart's Requiem, Spaur Mass and Coronation Mass, Beethoven's C major Mass, Mahler's 2nd Symphony, Duruflé's Requiem and Stravinsky's Les noces. From 2019 Padalko will continue her vocal studies with Prof. Heidrun Luchterhandt at the University of Church Music in Herford. In August 2020 she actively participated in a master class given by Prof. Christoph Prégardien.

Dimitri Grigoriev

Dmitri Grigoriev was born in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1979 and studied organ and piano after taking private lessons at the conservatories in St. Petersburg and Kazan, where he completed his studies in 2007 with the state concert exam. Grigoriev has lived in Germany since 2006, where he passed his B and A exams at the Herford School of Church Music. Grigoriev is the winner of the organ improvisation competition "Westfalen-Impro 5". In 2016 he completed his master’s exam in organ improvisation at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf, and in 2018 the concert exam in the same subject. Grigoriev performs as an organist and pianist with various soloists and regularly gives organ concerts at home and abroad. In August 2012, Dmitri Grigoriev was appointed to Lüdenscheid as district cantor in the Lüdenscheid-Plettenberg parish.

Gabriel Pereira, tenor

Filipe Pinto, piano

Brazil / Portugal

Gabriel Pereira

Gabriel Pereira was born in Brazil (1993), studied at the Centro de Formação Artística do Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte and at the PUC de Chile with Rodrigo del Pozo. He is currently a student with Roland Schubert at HMT Leipzig. Pereira was involved in opera productions when he joined the opera studio of the Teatro Municipal de São Paulo, e.g. B. "The Magic Flute", "Il Combatimento di Tancredi et Clorinda" and "L'Incoronazione di Poppea". In 2016 he was a soloist in Mozart's “Great Mass in C minor” in the Palácio das Artes. In 2016 and 2017 he played Bepe from "Rita" by G. Donizetti at the Teatro Guaíra. In 2018 he sang "The 7 Deadly Sins" by Kurt Weill in the Weimar Halle under the direction of Nicolas Pasqué. In 2019 the tenor appeared as an evangelist alongside the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra for the "Passion Music after the Evangelist Matthew" by C. Ph. E. Bach. In 2020 he sang the operas “There and Back” by Hindemith, “The Widow of Ephesus” by Hartmann and Krenek's “Heavyweight”, the “Stabat Mater” by Dvořák and the cantatas “Weeping, Lamenting, Worrying, Feeling” (BWV 12) and “Blessed be you, Jesus Christ” (BWV 91). During the Corona lockdown he gave the online concert "Songs of Hope".

Filipe Pinto

Filipe Pinto was born in Porto in 1987 and from an early age he showed great aptitude for the piano. At the age of 8 he joined the Oporto Music Conservatory in the class of Prof. Anne Marie Soares and Fátima Travanca. In 2006 he was admitted to the ESMAE (Porto’s Music University) in the class of PhD. Constantin Sandu in Bachelor's Degree and later in Master's Degree in the PhD class. Miguel Borges Coelho.

During this period he also studied in the class of Professors Erika Lux in Hanover and Luís de Moura Castro in Barcelona. He attended masterclasses in piano solo, contemporary ensemble, Lied and Orchestra conducting.

In 2015, wanting to deepen and dedicate himself to the interpretation of Lied, he joined the class of Prof. Alexander Schmalcz in "Félix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" HMT Leipzig concluding the studies of Master and Meisterklasseexamen.  In parallel he studied Orchestra Conducting with Alexander Stessin and Fredo Jung. During his studies in Leipzig, he was awarded the "Sachsen Landesstipendium" grant, won 2nd Prize in the chamber music competition with his Lied duo and debuted with the HTWK Leipzig orchestra playing Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto.

Olga Papakonstantinou, soprano

Greece

Olga Papakonstantinou was born in Larissa, Greece (1990). She studied piano and musical theory at
the Municipal Conservatory in Larissa. She completed in 2018 her Master in Musicology at the
School of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She graduated her studies
in Opera Singing with distinction at the Athenaeum Maria Callas Conservatory, under Christina
Giannakopoulou in 2019. She has also pursued vocal training in Medieval, Renaissance and
Baroque Music, under Aris Christofellis and Dimitris Kountouras at The Centre for Early Music
of the Athens Conservatoire (2015-2018). As a soloist and a chorister, she has performed at
the Megaron Athens Concert Hall, Lilian Voudouri Music Library and the Third Program of the
Greek National Radio. In December 2019 she was an additional member of the Greek National
Opera chorus, for the production of “Don Carlos”. In February 2020, she made her debut at
the Greek National Opera as Rapunzel, in Stephen's Sondheim "Into the Woods" and in
November 2020 she took the role of Soprano in the children’s performance “Everything is
Opera!”. She is currently engaged with Greek National Opera as Rapunzel in the production
"Into the Woods".