Biography

Lyric tenor Julian Prégardien's impressively versatile career ranges from historically oriented performances of Baroque works to mainstream opera and choral music and to unique chamber music programs that he arranges and develops himself. He also gives frequent song recitals and is a noted educator. Prégardien was born on July 12, 1984, in Frankfurt. His father is tenor Christoph Prégardien. He had his first taste of musical education as a member of the Limburg Cathedral Boys' Choir, of which his father was a founding member. Julian's vocal talents were noticed early, and before he even began his formal musical education at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in 2005, he sang with leading groups such as the historically oriented Collegium Vocale Gent and the Stuttgart Chamber Choir. He made his operatic debut in 2007 at the Bavarian Theater Academy in a staging of the rarely performed Fredegunda by Reinhard Keiser. After graduating in 2009, Prégardien immediately landed a place in the cast of the Frankfurt Opera, performing such roles as Tamino in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, K. 620, and remaining with the company through the 2012-2013 season. In 2014, he recorded his debut album, the song recital An die Geliebte, on the Myrios Classics label. Prégardien has continued to sing opera, reprising the role of Tamino at the Berlin State Opera in 2019, but he has increasingly often sung concert works. As early as 2005, he performed with the Ricercar Consort, and the following year, he participated in a Bach cantata cycle at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Prégardien has sung with such major orchestras as the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and in 2019, the Cleveland Orchestra in Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 52 ("Lobgesang"). In addition to Myrios Classics, Prégardien has recorded for the Challenge Classics, Alpha, and CPO labels. In 2018, for Alpha, he released a recording of the Hans Zender orchestration of Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise, D. 911. The next year, he joined soprano Sandrine Piau for a recording on Alpha of Schumann's Dichterliebe, Op. 48. In 2022, he was heard on the historical performance group Pygmalion's recording of Bach's Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244, and the following year, he rejoined Piau on CPO for a recording of Mozart's Die verstellte Gärtnerin, the rare German-language version of the opera La finta giardiniera. Since 2017, Prégardien has been a faculty member at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. ~ James Manheim, Rovi