Johanna Vargas

The Colombian coloratura soprano Johanna Vargas is one of today’s most sought-after singers of contemporary music. Her versatile training and her experiences in a broad repertory covering a wide range of musical styles and genres — from bel canto to Latin jazz, pop and improvisation — combine in her performances with a profound understanding of drama and choreography.

Since 2019 she has been a permanent member of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, and performs regularly at renowned festivals for new music. The ensemble was awarded the Silver Lion at the 2021 Venice Biennale. Recent concerts have taken her to the Festival Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, the Zagreb Music Biennale, the ECLAT Festival of New Music in Stuttgart and to the ManiFeste festival, co-ordinated by IRCAM.

Her recent solo appearances include her debut with Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. She has worked with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, with Dennis Russell Davies and the MDR Symphony Orchestra, with Ensemble Musikfabrik under Peter Rundel at WDR Cologne, and at ManiFeste in Paris and the Tongyeong International Music Festival, and appears regularly with Ensemble Modern at the ECLAT Festival.

Johanna Vargas has participated in numerous premieres of works by leading composers of today, among them Georges Aperghis, Carola Bauckholt, Chaya Czernowin, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Bernhard Lang, Lucia Ronchetti, Claudia Jane Scroccaro and Francesca Verunelli, and has also been involved in many CD productions and radio recordings and broadcasts.

From 2021 to 2024 she was artist in residence at the Fondation Royaumont. In 2022 she received a residency scholarship at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris with her duo LAB51, founded in 2015.

Her awards include the Hanns Eisler Performance Award (2015), the John Cage Prize in Halberstadt (2018), and a scholarship from the NUNC!3 festival at the Northwestern University New Music Conference.

Johanna Vargas studied in Bogotá, Bremen, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart with renowned vocal pedagogues such as Hartmut Höll, Angelika Luz, Georg Nigl and Mitsuko Shirai. Since 2018 she has taught contemporary music and performance at the University of Music in Karlsruhe.