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A rising baritone star in the operatic scene of the 1990s, Boje Skovhus studied at the Aarhus Music College and the Royal Academy for Opera of Copenhagen and then went to New York for further training. After acquiring some professional experience on various stages, he had a breakout appearance at the Vienna Volksoper when he substituted at the last minute as Mozart's Don Giovanni. Since then he has enjoyed a rapidly developing career on the world's greatest opera stages.

He has been virtually adopted by the Viennese, who saw him rocket to fame on one of their stages, and regularly sings at the Volksoper and the Vienna State Opera. He regularly sings the other Mozart-Da Ponte baritone roles besides Don Giovanni, namely, the Count in Le nozze di Figaro and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte.

His good looks and a star quality make him an ideal choice for that minority of operas where the baritone part is the main or title role. Thus, he has spurred a revival of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Volksoper, and Royal Opera Copenhagen, as well as the little known baritone version of Massenet's Werther. He also has made a specialty of Britten's Billy Budd and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, including arias or scenes from them on his first opera disc under his exclusive artist contract with the Sony Classics label. Other leading baritone parts in his repertory are Berg's Wozzeck, Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero, Peter I in Zar und Zimmerman, Tarquinius in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, and Raimond in Othmar Schoeck's Venus.

Skovhus also frequently appears on the recital stage and has recorded creatively chosen recital discs. These include selections of lied settings by Hugo Wolf and Erich Wolfgang Korngold of poems by Eichendorff, a selection of songs by Robert and Clara Schumann called The Heart of the Poet, and the two great Schubert song cycles Schwanengesang and Die schöne Müllerin. His favored accompanist is pianist Helmut Deutsch. After his 1997 New York recital at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center he was acclaimed as one of the great lieder singers of his generation.

He has appeared on many of the world's great opera stages, including the Metropolitan in New York (debuting in the 1998-1999 season in Die Fledermaus), the Hamburg State Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra de Paris, Royal Opera Copenhagen, and the Bavarian State Opera.

He appears at major music festivals. Among them are Ravinia, Tanglewood, Edinburgh, the Vienna Festwochen, and the Feldkirch Schubertiade. On the orchestral concert stage, he has sung in Orff's Carmina Burana, Britten's War Requiem, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms' Ein deutsche Requiem, and Schumann's Scenes from Faust.

Stefan Vladar is a prominent Austrian pianist. Well before he reached the age of 30, he was the winner of a major competition, had appeared with many famous conductors and orchestras in Europe and America, and had made several important recordings. But like many successful pianists from the latter-twentieth century, he wanted to branch out into other areas: he first served as director of various musical events and then became a conductor. While his choices in repertory have favored the German School -- especially as a conductor -- he has played various piano works by Dvorák, Bartók, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Gershwin. As a pianist Vladar has regularly performed as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber player and has recorded for major labels, including Sony, Naxos, Harmonia Mundi, Camerata, and Koch Classics.

Stefan Vladar was born in Vienna in 1965. He began piano lessons at the age of six and thereafter advanced quickly. In 1973 he enrolled at the Vienna Music Academy, where his most important teachers were Renate Kramer-Preisenhammer and Hans Petermandl.

In 1985 he became the youngest pianist ever to win first prize at the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna. Not surprisingly, his career had a meteoric ascent, as Vladar soon made appearances with the leading Viennese and European orchestras under the likes of Abbado, Ozawa, Marriner, Chailly, and others.

Soon Vladar's musical interests would extend into other areas: in 1988 he was appointed artistic director of the Neuberger Kulturtage (an annual festival/seminar event) in Styria, Austria, and in 1999 he became artistic director of a similar annual event held in Kremsmünster, known as the Upper Austrian Stiftskonzerte.

By the early '90s, Vladar had made a number of highly praised recordings, including the 1991 Brahms Piano Sonata No. 1 and Four Ballades for Sony. He had also launched a cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos by then for Naxos.

In 2002 Vladar accepted the appointment as chief conductor of the newly formed Grosses Orchester Graz, a post he held through 2006. During his tenure there he also led other major European orchestras, including the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the latter naming him chief conductor and artistic director in 2008. Vladar joined the faculty at Vienna's University of Music and Performing Arts as professor of piano in 1999, yet is frequently found performing in chamber music recitals and conducting orchestra concerts at many of Europe's festivals. Among his recordings is the 2006 CD of Schumann's Carnaval, Papillons, and Faschingsschwank on Harmonia Mundi.