Hanna Herfurtner

Hanna Herfurtner was born in Munich. After studying theatre studies and art history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, she then switched to vocal studies at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart and subsequently at the Berlin University of the Arts. She studied with Julie Kaufmann, and later with John Norris and Maria Janina Hake.

Today the soprano is an experienced interpreter, especially of early music and contemporary music.

Hanna Herfurtner was a prize-winner at the Pietro Antonio Cesti International Vocal Competition for Baroque Opera at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music in 2010 and received the special prize at the Resonanzen Early Music Festival of the Vienna Konzerthaus, where she has been a regular guest ever since, most recently with Concerto Melante.

She was Singer in Residence at the Trigonale Festival of Early Music, where she performed with baroque soloists and Ensemble Sirocco, Franco Pavan and Alfredo Bernardini, among others.

Numerous CD recordings with the Kölner Akademie, the Bach Consort Wien and the Staats- und Domchor zu Berlin document the range of her repertoire.

Her busy concert schedule includes a wide oratorio repertoire with works by Monteverdi, Bach and Handel as well as Mendelssohn, Brahms and Honegger. It takes her all over Europe, among others to the Theater an der Wien, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or the Norwegian National Opera. She works closely with Wolfgang Katschner and the Lautten Compagney Berlin. Joint engagements have taken her to the Prague Early Music Summer Festival, RheinVokal and the Mozart Festival in Würzburg, among others. In spring 2018, she made her debut at the Handel Festival in Halle as Clio, the female lead in Handel's "Parnasso in Festa", directed by Sigrid t'Hooft, a specialist in baroque gestures. The following season she sang Morgana in Handel's "Alcina" there, as well as Almirena in "Rinaldo" and Arianna in "Il Giustino" on a tour of southern Germany and Switzerland. She is also a regular guest in the lounge format of the Lautten Compagney live at the Theater im Delphi in Berlin. In May 2021 she presented her first solo album "Lucier and Bach: Sitting in a room", which combines the conceptual artwork "I am Sitting in a Room" by Alvin Lucier with selected arias by J. S. Bach. The CD was released by bastille musique/Deutschlandfunk. In the same year she gave a guest performance at the Bregenz Festival in the world premiere of the opera "Wind" by Alexander Moosbrugger. In 2021-22 she returned to the Berlin State Opera unter den Linden as Pinocchio in Lucia Ronchetti's mono-opera of the same name. In 2022 she made her debut at the Göttingen Handel Festival, sang Telemann concerts under Reinhard Göbel, J.S. Bach's "St. John Passion" with Ensemble Resonanz, Bach's "B Minor Mass" at the Leipzig Bach Festival with Ensemble I barocchisti under Diego Fasolis, J.S. Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" with the Dresdner Kreuzchor and also with Ensemble Resonanz at the Hamburg Laeiszhalle. In 2023-2024, her agenda includes Handel's "Messiah" at the Halle Handel Festival, guest engagements at the Schwetzinger Winter and the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, as well as projects with the RIAS Chamber Choir and the Kölner Akademie. With Ensemble Resonanz she can be heard again with the "Christmas Oratorio", this time in Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. In 2024 she will return to the Bregenz Festival.

In addition, she made her debut at the Ruhrtriennale as the "naked virgin" in Arnold Schönberg's "Moses und Aaron", directed by Willi Decker. The following year she sang the title role in the world premiere of Hans Werner Henze's last opera "Gisela". She was a guest at the Salzburg and Bregenz Festivals, the Berlin State Opera, the Cologne Opera, the Frankfurt Opera and the Nederlandse Reisopera. For a short time she belonged to the ensemble of the Kiel Opera, where she was heard as Olympia in "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" and Fraarte in Handel's "Radamisto", among other roles. She has appeared in numerous world premieres - for example in "Mauerschau" by Hauke Berheide at the Munich Opera Festival, in Klaus Ospald's "Ungefroren ist die Erde" with the Coburg Symphony Orchestra and in Annette Schlünz's "Tre Volti" at the opening premiere of the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. In 2016 she made her debut at the National Music Forum in Wrocław with Ligeti's "Mysteries of the Macabre". She also performed in "A Monteverdi Project" at the Baroque Days of the Berlin State Opera.

Song is also very close to her heart. She received strong impulses in this genre from Axel Bauni and Eric Schneider. In 2009, she won 1st prize at the Paula Salomon Lindberg Competition in Berlin with the pianist Stefan Paul. In recent years, Hanna Herfurtner has appeared with various programmes at the Heidelberger Frühling, the Coburger Musikverein and the Vienna Konzerthaus, among others. At the Rheingau Music Festival she performed Hugo Wolf's "Italian Songbook" together with Jonathan Ware. As a duo with jazz guitarist Max Frankl, she tours with new interpretations of John Dowland's songs.

She is also co-founder and artistic director of the vocal ensemble THE PRESENT, which specialises in the interweaving of early and contemporary music. It is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation as part of the Reload.scholarship.