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Barbara Bonney is one of her generation's most versatile singers, having achieved equal success with lied, oratorio, modern vocal music, and opera, and on top of all that having become a highly proficient cellist. Her smallish but well-projected voice is especially suited to Mozart, the lighter Richard Strauss operas, and all but the heaviest lieder, and she has been careful in her choice of repertoire; even in her fortiess, she can still call forth a fresh, girlish timbre when it is needed.

Her family was not a musical one, and it was only by chance that her parents discovered she had perfect pitch and a sense of music--when she was three, they noticed that she could perfectly imitate musical noises, such as the melody that one of the household clocks chimed. When she was older, she started piano, but found that she preferred the more songful tones of the cello. It was an interest in German that led to her singing career--as a college student at the University of New Hampshire she decided to spend a year studying at the University of Salzburg. She worked a wide variety of jobs to support herself, including cooking, selling produce at a vegetable stand, and copying music, and one day a friend suggested that she audition for the famed Mozarteum orchestra there. She hadn't brought her cello overseas with her, since the costs of shipping were prohibitive, so instead she prepared a song for her audition, and was offered a position as a lieder student. Spurred on by this success, she auditioned for the Darmstadt Opera (knowing only two arias out of the entire operatic repertoire), and was given the ingenue role of Anna in Nicolai's Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor). During her years with the company, she learned over forty operatic roles.

In 1984, she made her Vienna State Opera debut as Sophie in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, a role which was to become one of her most famous. Another characteristic role, that of Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflõte, she first undertook in her 1985 La Scala debut. In 1987, she sang Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at Monte Carlo, which brought her to the attention of conductor Carlos Kleiber. Lucia Popp, too, greatly admired her Sophie, and when Popp relinquished the role, moving on to the Marschallin, she declared that she was passing it on to Bonney, the Sophie of the next generation. Her Met debut was in 1988, as Naiad in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. During the 1990s, increasingly able to pick and choose what roles and repertoire she would sing, she began to reduce her operatic roles to a few of her special favorites, such as Pamina, Susanna (in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro), and Ilia (in his Idomeneo), and adding a few new roles, such as Zdenka in Strauss's Arabella and Hanna Glawari (in Lehár's Die lustige Witwe [The Merry Widow]). Like Popp, she chose to drop the role of Sophie, leaving it for younger singers. This would allow her to spend more time singing lieder performances, and also to teach.

She was briefly married to baritone Hakan Hagegard. Among her recordings, her Mozart arias (London 460 571) and Schubert lieder (Teldec 90873) capture her voice and singing quite well. ~ Ann Feeney

The Swedish mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter is among the most versatile singers on today's scene, recording and performing opera of various eras and in various languages, art song, oratorio, rock, pop, and jazz. As a song recitalist, collaborating with pianist Bengt Forsberg, she has specialized in unusual and original programming. Von Otter was born in Stockholm on May 9, 1955. Her father was a Swedish diplomat, and her childhood was divided among stints in several countries; she mastered multiple languages as a child. Von Otter enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying with Vera Rosza, Erik Werba, and Geoffrey Parsons. Joining the cast of the Basel Opera in 1983, she made her debut as Alcina in Haydn's Orlando Paladino and singing several "pants" roles including the title role in Rossini's Tancredi. For a time, von Otter specialized in 18th century opera, including the muscular opera seria heroine roles that were just starting to become popular at the end of the 20th century. After multiple audition attempts, von Otter also landed a place in the stable of singers associated with conductor John Eliot Gardiner, performing and recording such works as Handel's Jephtha, Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, and St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, and Mozart's Requiem in D minor, K. 626. Von Otter has performed at La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London, and other major European opera houses. With Bengt Forsberg she has released critically acclaimed recitals such as Terezin/Theresienstadt (2007) featuring music written by composers being held in concentration camps. Her artistic scope has only grown as she has aged; in 2016 she joined with the experimental ensemble Brooklyn Rider for a recital of works by composers ranging from Elvis Costello (with whom she had already released a duet album) to Björk, Nico Muhly, Kate Bush, and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, with whom she recorded the album Love Songs in 2010. She has also recorded mainstream Romantic lieder repertory as well as Swedish art songs. Von Otter released A Simple Song, with Forsberg on the organ, on Sweden's BIS label in late 2018. ~ James Manheim

Andreas Schmidt is one of Germany's best-known veteran low voice singers on the operatic and concert stages. He began his singing career while still a young boy as a member of the Dresden Kreuzchor. In 1965 he began studies at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden, specializing in opera singing and vocal pedagogy.

His stage debut was as Georg in Marschner's Der Waffenschmied at the Gerhart-Hauptmann Theater in Görlitz, following which he was contracted as a member of its company. He worked his way up as member of the Hans-Otto-Theater of Potsdam and the Volkstheater Rostock companies. In 1980 he became a member of the company of Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin.

He has sung such roles as Oberon, Monostatos, and Pedrillo (Entführung aus dem Serail), and in Don Carlos, Pique Dame, Wozzeck, and Salome. He has often appeared in concerts and oratorios on television and radio. He has appeared on a large number of international record labels. His discography includes a large number of Bach cantatas and the major Bach Passions and Masses. He has had particular distinction for his singing of songs and other vocal music of late Romantic composers Franz Schreker and Franz Schmidt, and operas by Wagner, Strauss, Humperdinck, and Mozart, as well as songs by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann.

A light-voiced tenor with a sensuous sound and a trim, handsome appearance, Hans Peter Blochwitz made a somewhat late debut in opera, but quickly rose to the top level of Austro-German lyric tenors. His thoroughness and accuracy as a musician brought engagements with the most fastidious conductors and he secured a place among those artists well suited to Bach and Handel, as well as Mozart. In addition to opera and orchestral concert work, Blochwitz soon found himself in demand as a Lieder singer. After studies at both Mainz and Frankfort, Blochwitz graduated with a doctorate in computer science. By the time of his debut as Lenski, he was nearly 36, but engagements were almost immediately proffered from major European houses. When Peter Schreier, one of the era's leading Don Ottavios, conducted his first Don Giovanni, he chose Blochwitz for the role in the 1987 Hamburg production. His suitability for Mozart tenor roles placed him in demand with such theaters as Vienna, La Scala, Paris (both the Bastille and Châtelet), Zürich, Brussels, Covent Garden, San Francisco, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam, as well as in San Francisco and San Diego. During the 1990 - 1991 season, Blochwitz made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera (again in the role of Don Ottavio). The Salzburg Festival also beckoned and his first appearance there during that same season was as Belmonte in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Two other parts with which he became closely identified were undertaken in 1992 - 1993. At Frankfurt, he sang Tito in La clemenza di Tito, and for Zürich, he introduced his Flamand in Strauss' Capriccio. Despite his successes in music of the eighteenth century, Blochwitz has not neglected works of his own time. His repertory has included works by Britten, Henze (Der junge Lord), and Martin. He was chosen to premier Hans Zender's adaptation of Schubert's Die Winterreise and subsequently recorded the work. Blochwitz's song recitals have been heard worldwide from London's Wigmore Hall to Japan. On recording, he has collaborated with conductors as diverse as Levine, Chailly, and Harnoncourt.

Within the Classical recording industry, Cord Garben was for years better known as a record producer than as a pianist or conductor. In fact, he won eight Grammy awards for various recordings he produced. Veteran record collectors will remember his name from the many von Karajan, Fischer-Dieskau, and Michelangeli recordings he oversaw for the Deutsche Grammophon label beginning in the 1970s. But Garben has been active as a pianist throughout his career as well, typically as an accompanist to singers and as a conductor. In recent decades Garben has amassed a discography of his own, accompanying some of the leading singers of the day in lieder repertory -- Anne Sofie von Otter, Hildegard Behrens, Brigitte Fassbaender, Andreas Schmidt, Thomas Allen, and many others -- and as a conductor and solo pianist in rarely encountered repertory (piano sonatas of Carl Loewe). Garben has also partnered instrumentalists, most notably the violinist Gottfried Schneider in Godowski's 12 Impressions for Violin and Piano on the Etcetera label. Garben has recorded for DG, Naxos, Sony, Harmonia Mundi, CPO, Orfeo, and Hänssler Classics.

Cord Garben was born in Bad Homburg, Germany, in 1943. He studied music at the Academy of Music and Theater in Hanover and after graduation served as a vocal coach at the Niedersächsische Staatstheater there. He soon began appearing in concert as accompanist to singers and was then taken on by Deutsche Grammophon as a recording producer.

In 1975 he served as executive producer on the acclaimed multi-disc complete DG set of Schumann lieder sung by Fischer-Dieskau. Garben would produce many more Fischer-Dieskau recordings, as well as several by Rostropovich, Michelangeli and von Karajan, including the maestro's first collaborations with Anne-Sophie Mutter in 1978 (the Mozart Violin Concertos No. 3 and No. 5).

In 1986 Garben was appointed director of vocal productions for Deutsche Grammophon. By then he was already well known as a pianist and conductor. In 1989 Garben led the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in a collaboration with pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli on an acclaimed DG disc of Mozart's Piano Concertos No. 20 and No. 25.

Throughout the 1990s and into the new century Garben remained active in both the concert hall and recording studio. In the latter realm he worked on a 21-CD set on the CPO label of the complete songs of Carl Loewe, with singers Andreas Schmidt, Kurt Moll, Ruth Ziesak, and others.