Austrian baritone Florian Boesch is hailed as one of today’s foremost Lieder interpreters with appearances at Wigmore Hall, Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie Cologne, Edinburgh and Schwetzingen Festival, Maifestspiele Wiesbaden, the Salzburg Festival, the Konzerthaus in Dortmund, Philharmonie Luxemburg as well as throughout the USA (Carnegie Hall) and Canada. Accompanied by Malcolm Martineau, he performed all three Schubert cycles in Glasgow and in Australia (Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne). Florian Boesch was an artist in residence at the Wigmore Hall, at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, at the Teatro Real in Madrid and at the Theater an der Wien. In the 2021/2022 season, he will demonstrate his versatility as artist in residence at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
As a frequent guest on the concert platform Florian Boesch has worked with leading orchestras and conductors such as Wiener and Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapielle Dresden, London Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Bamberger Symphoniker, and Ivor Bolton, Riccardo Chailly, Gustavo Dudamel, Adam Fischer, Iván Fischer, Valery Gergiev, Stefan Gottfried, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Pablo Heras-Casado, Mariss Jansons, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Simon Rattle, Robin Ticciati and Franz Welser-Möst. He worked very closely with Nikolaus Harnoncourt with whom he did Händel’s Messiah and Saul at the Wiener Musikverein and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the 2014 styriarte festival. Further joint projects included Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons at the 2013 Salzburg Festival, or The Creation in Japan.
Highlights of the current and coming season include concerts with Beethoven’s IX. Symphony under Zubin Mehta in Florence, Macerata and Marbella, Haydn’s Creation with the Royal Concertgebouw Orkest under Philippe Herreweghe in Amsterdam, Lucerne and Cologne, and with the Bamberg Symphony under Giovanni Antonini in Bamberg and Baden-Baden, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater and Brahms’ Requiem with the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle in London, Mendelssohn’s Paulus and Bach’s St John Passion with the Concentus Musicus and Stefan Gottfried at the Vienna Musikverein, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under Alan Gilbert in Hamburg. He gives recitals at the Vienna State Opera, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, Luxembourg’s Philharmonie and the Paris Philharmonie, among others.
On the opera stage Florian Boesch compels as a great singer-actor, most recently in a new production of Handel’s Orlando and Händel’s Saul in productions of Claus Guth at the Theater an der Wien. He has offered further acclaimed portrayals in staged versions of Schubert’s Lazarus and Handel’s Messiah and as Jonathan Peachum in Kurt Weill’s Dreigroschenoper, in Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at the Theater an der Wien and as Méphistophélès in Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust at the Berlin State Opera at the Schillertheater under Sir Simon Rattle’s baton. Major productions of his career also include Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in Cologne or Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival. The 2022/2023 season will mark Florian Boesch’s debut at the Vienna State Opera with a Mahler project entitled Von der Liebe Tod (leading Team Calixto Bieito & Lorenzo Viotti). He will also appear in a staged production of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with Nikolaus Habjan and Musicbanda Franui at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden.
His recordings have been celebrated by the international press and received numerous awards, including an Edison Klassiek Award in 2012. Die schöne Müllerin was nominated for a 2015 Grammy in the category Best Classical Vocal Solo. In early September 2017, Hyperion released a new recording of Schubert’s Winterreise with Roger Vignoles at the piano; in the autumn of 2018 this was followed by a recording of orchestrated Schubert songs with Concentus Musicus Vienna under the baton of Stefan Gottfried. Boesch’s recordings of Schumann and Mahler songs won a BBC Music Magazine Award.
Florian Boesch received his initial vocal trainings from KS Ruthilde Boesch and later studied Lied and oratorio with KS Robert Holl in Vienna. Florian Boesch is holding a professorship at the University of Music and Drama in Vienna.