Julian Prégardien was born in Frankfurt and received his first musical training in the choirs of Limburg Cathedral. Following his studies in Freiburg and at the Academy of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence he became an ensemble member of the Frankfurt Opera. During this period, he also developed his international concert career.
As an opera singer he has performed at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the State Operas of Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, the Opéra Comique in Paris and the Mozartwoche in Salzburg. He made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2018 as Narraboth in Romeo Castellucci’s production of Salome under Franz Welser-Möst. In May 2024 he sang Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) under Welser-Möst in Cleveland. In January 2025 he will perform this role in a new production at the Vienna State Opera.
On the concert platform Julian Prégardien has recently given acclaimed performances with Concentus Musicus Wien, the Cleveland Orchestra under Welser-Möst at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Klaus Mäkelä, Ensemble Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon, the Vienna Philharmonic under Welser-Möst, La Cetra under Andrea Marcon, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti.
Highlights for the 2024/25 season will be Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Haydn’s The Creation and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Les Épopées under Stéphane Fuget in Dortmund and Versailles, Bach’s St John Passion with Ensemble Pygmalion under Pichon and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Munich Chamber Orchestra.
Song recitals and chamber music projects have always been a particular focus of Julian Prégardien’s artistic activity. He is the initiator and artistic director of the Liedstadt Festival, which travels through German-speaking countries and will take place in Hamburg for the first time in October 2024, and in which artists explore the genre of Lied in a wide variety of formats. In 2024, along with song recitals throughout Europe, he performs Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with András Schiff both at the Salzburg Festival and at London’s Wigmore Hall.
Julian Prégardien is an exclusive artist with the label Harmonia Mundi, for which in August 2024 he releases a recording of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with Kristian Bezuidenhout on fortepiano. He is a professor of singing at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich, a member of the Schumann Network and artistic director of the Brentano Academy in Aschaffenburg.
