Biography

Thomas Hampson

Current as of May 2023

Long recognized as one of the most innovative musicians of our time, the American baritone Thomas Hampson has received countless international awards for his work. His operatic repertory comprises more than eighty roles, and his discography includes more than 170 albums, for which he has received awards such as the Grammy Award, Edison Award and the Grand Prix du Disque.

Highlights of Thomas Hampson’s 2022/23 season have included a gala concert with the mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi, Mahler songs with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and John Adams’s The Wound-Dresser and Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony with the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and the Berlin Philharmonie. Together with Luca Pisaroni and the Würth Philharmonic he also presented the programme No Tenors Allowed. In March 2023 he made his critically-acclaimed role debut as Richard Nixon (Nixon in China) at the Paris Opéra under Gustavo Dudamel.

As a chamber musician he has performed at the season’s opening concert with the New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco, given recitals at the Turku Music Festival, the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw and at Schloss Elmau, and performed Schumann’s Dichterliebe with the pianist Martha Argerich at the KKL Luzern. He also gave concerts and masterclasses at the Mahler Festival in Leipzig.

Engagements in recent seasons have included Jan Vermeer in the world premiere of Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring at the Zurich Opera House, Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte) at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the title role in Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian at the Teatro Real in Madrid and at the Castell de Peralada Festival, and concerts with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under Klaus Mäkelä, the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Klangforum Wien and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. He has also sung in concerts of organ music with Martin Haselböck at the Dresden Philharmonie and with Christian Schmitt at the Zurich Tonhalle, and performed in a recital with the pianist Wolfram Rieger at the Künstlerhaus Boswil.

Thomas Hampson is an honorary professor at the University of Heidelberg and an honorary member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. In addition to several honorary doctorates, he is a Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France. In 2017 he received the Hugo Wolf Medal, together with Wolfram Rieger. He is the co-founder and artistic director of the Heidelberg Lied Academy (part of the Heidelberg Spring Festival). In 2003 he founded the Hampsong Foundation, to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding through the art of song. His international masterclass schedule is a continuing online resource of Medici.tv, the Manhattan School of Music, and The Hampsong Foundation livestream channel.

read more collapse

Photos and Videos

open gallery
open gallery
open gallery
open gallery
open gallery
open gallery
open gallery