Biography

German baritone Christian Gerhaher attended the Opera School of the Academy of Music in Munich, where he studied voice with Paul Kuen and Raimund Grumbach, and lied interpretation with Friedemann Berger. He furthered his vocal training in master classes given by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Inge Borkh. Mr. Gerhaher holds an honorary professorship at the Academy of Music in Munich.

During the 2014-15 season Mr. Gerhaher has a residency at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and can be heard in Hartmann’s Gesangsszene with the Bavarian State Orchestra, in German Romantic arias with the Staatskapelle Dresden, and in Mahler recitals in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, and in London, Paris, Essen, and at the Salzburg Festival. The 2013-14 season saw Mr. Gerhaher premiere three song cycles, Heinz Holliger’s Lunea, Jörg Widmann’s Das heisse Herz, as well as Wolfgang Rihm’s Harzreise im Winter, which contrasts settings of Goethe texts by Rihm and Schubert. 

Mr. Gerhaher records exclusively for Sony Music. His recordings with pianist Gerold Huber include song cycles of Schumann and Schubert, as well as many other lied recordings. He can also be heard on recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Concentus Musicus Wien in works by Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Humperdinck, Orff, and Mahler. In January 2014 Mr. Gerhaher received the German Record Critics’ Nachtigall Prize. Christian Gerhaher and his wife live with their three children in Munich. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances.

(February 2015)