Ian Bostridge

Born in London in 1964, tenor Ian Bostridge had already completed graduate studies in history and philosophy at Corpus Christi College in Oxford with a doctorate before he decided on a singing career. Since the mid-1990s he has appeared in major music centers around the world, particularly as a lieder singer. He has served as artist-in-residence at Vienna’s Konzerthaus and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; in the 2005-06 season he performed a concert cycle as part of the Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall in New York, later embarking on similar projects at the Barbican Centre in London (2008) and the Philharmonie in Luxembourg (2010-11). As early as 1994 Bostridge made his operatic debut as Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; subsequent credits have been with the Royal Opera House and English National Opera in London, the Bavarian and Vienna Staatsoper, and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. Concert engagements have brought him to the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Boston and London Symphony Orchestras, and the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics. Bostridge’s repertoire spans from Monteverdi to modernism, with a special emphasis on the work of Benjamin Britten. He has also made a name as a performer of contemporary music, appearing, for example, in the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s opera The Tempest; Hans Werner Henze has composed several works for him. An author as well, Bostridge published his historical study Witchcraft and Its Transformations in 1997, followed by the anthology The Book of Lieder in 2005; A Singer’s Notebook will appear in September 2011. Ian Bostridge is an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi and St. John’s College; in 2004 he was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 4 April 1998 as the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John Passion with The English Concert under Trevor Pinnock.

August 2011