Master class for singers 4 | Olaf Bär

Olaf Bär © Matthias Creutziger
Back to calendar
Richard-Strauss-Platz 2, 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Deutschland
Olaf Bär
Julian Riem
piano

Singing is a central element in the life of Ks. Olaf Bär, as a singer at the international opera houses and concert podiums as well as a teacher. He began his musical education as a boy joining the "Dresdner Kreuzchor". Afterwards he studied at the Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" in Dresden. He was brilliant in many roles and established himself as a prestigious Mozart and Strauss singer. From Monday, June 25 to Thursday, June 28, Olaf Baer gives young singers the opportunity to develop their skills in his master class. The final concert will take place on Friday, 29 June.

Olaf Bär © Matthias Creutziger
Olaf Bär © Matthias Creutziger

Olaf BärThe baritone Olaf Bär began his musical education in his early youth when he joined the Dresdner Kreuzchor. He begann his studies in 1978 at the University of Music Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. After his first prize at the Walther Gruner Competition for German Lied in London, he began his international career as a concert and lied singer. Lieder recitals and concerts have taken him to the music centers of Europe and America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Olaf Bär’s successful career on the opera stage is emphasized by his well-known partners on the podium such as Sir George Solti, Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Colin Davis, Hartmut Haenchen, Riccardo Muti, Peter Schreier, Jeffrey Tate, John Eliot Gardiner, Franz Welser-Möst, Adam Fischer, Mark Minkowski, Fabio Luisi, and Pierre Boulez. His cooperation with directors such as Joachim Herz, Ruth Berghaus, Juergen Flimm, Hans Neuenfels, Andreas Homoki, Sven-Eric Bechtolf and Patrice Chereau was another defining feature.

For many years Olaf Bär has a guest contract at the Staatsoper Dresden. Guest appearances have taken him to the Covent Garden Opera House in London, the La Scala Theater, the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, the opera houses in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich, Chicago, Rome, Naples and Turin, as well as to Bayreuth festival, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Japan and Glyndebourne, the Wiener Festwochen, and the Ruhr Triennale. Numerous recordings on EMI , Decca, Philips among others document his vocal work. In 1998, Olaf Bär was awarded the Schumann Prize of the city of Zwickau. Since 2004, Olaf Bär has been a professor at the University of Music in Dresden and leads the Lied class.

© Sammy Hart
© Sammy Hart

Julian Riemstudied under Michael Schäfer at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich and under Michel Béroff at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris.
Most recently, he continued his studies in the soloist class of Rudolf Buchbinder at the Basle Music Academy, where he received the soloist diploma with honors. Early on declared by Béroff as one of the “most promising pianists of his generation”, he won international piano competitions in Modena, Madrid and Premio Vittorio Gui in Florence and was a scholarship holder of the German Music Competition.

As a soloist, chamber musician and Lied accompanist, he performs regularly in Europe, Japan and the USA. He plays both in the Velit Quartet and in the Munich Horn Trio, which received an Echo Klassik for the recording of the Horn Trios by Brahms, Ligeti and Koechlin at Farao classics in 2012. Together with cellist Raphaela Gromes he forms a solid duo whose CD recording ‘Serenata Italiana’ 2017 will be released by Sony classical. The CD program will be presented in season 17/18 in the Tonhalle Zurich, the Allerheiligen Hofkirche Munich, het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Laiszhalle Hamburg and the Wiener Konzertverein.

He performed at international festivals like the Liszt-en-Provence Piano Festival, Musica mundi in Brussels, the Rolf Liebermann Podium Hamburg, Les Muséiques in Basel, the Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival, the Munich Biennale, the Munich Opera Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Oleg -Kagan Festival Kreuth, the Tucson Friends of Chambermusic, Arizona, Tongyeong International Music Festival, Korea, and Barge Music New York.