Julian Prégardien

Julian Prégardien was born in Frankfurt and received his earliest musical training as a chorister in the Limburg Cathedral choirs. Following his studies in Freiburg and his time with the Académie du Festival Aix-en-Provence, he was a member of the Frankfurt Opera ensemble, developing simultaneously his international concert career.

As an opera singer, he has performed at the Festival d’Aix en Provence, the Hamburg and Bavarian State Operas, the Opéra Comique in Paris, the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin State Opera and the Salzburg Mozart Week. Highlights of the previous season included Tamino (Mozart’s The Magic Flute) in Cleveland under Franz Welser-Möst and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) at the Salzburg Festival, followed by a new production of The Magic Flute at the Vienna State Opera in January 2025. In the new season Julian Prégardien can be heard as Don Ottavio and as Oronte (Handel’s Alcina) in a new production at the Bavarian State Opera, as well as in a new production of Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo at the Schwetzingen Festival.

Recent concert successes include performances with Concentus Musicus Wien, The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw Orkest under Klaus Mäkelä, Ensemble Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon, the Vienna Philharmonic under Franz Welser-Möst, La Cetra under Andrea Marcon, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. Taking up the position of Artist in Residence at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Julian can be heard in the 2025-26 season in recitals with Sir András Schiff and in concerts with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as part of his own series of concerts entitled ‘Schubert for everyone’.

Recitals and chamber music projects hold a particular significance in Julian Prégardien’s artistic work. To celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the creation of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, he performed the masterpiece across 10 diverse venues in Vienna in autumn 2023, inspiring the artist to found and lead the “Liedstadt” Festival, which debuted in Hamburg in October 2024. This extraordinary experience inspired him to found the Liedstadt festival, which took place for the first time in Hamburg in October 2024 and showcases artists in diverse formats around the theme of ‘Lied’. Following its great success, Liedstadt now travels to Weimar, Berlin, Leipzig and Salzburg.

Julian Prégardien has released Schubert’s Winterreise, his Schwanengesang and Schumann’s Dichterliebe with Alpha Classics. He is an exclusive artist with Harmonia Mundi, under which his recording of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, with Kristian Bezuidenhout on the fortepiano, was released in August 2024.