Stephan Loges

Stephan Loges (pronounced "low-gus") is a German bass-baritone who came to international attention after winning a number of prestigious prizes in the last five years of the 1990s.

He began singing early and joined the Dresdner Kreuzchor (Dresden Boys' Choir) when he was nine years old. Nevertheless, he did not begin vocal studies until he was nineteen, when he began studying with Karin Mitzcherling. He won the Gold Medal in the National Youth Singing Competition, then began studies at the Hochschule der Künste (Academy of the Arts) in Berlin in 1992. In 1995, he moved to London to continue his vocal studies with Rudolf Piernay at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He completed the opera course there in 1999. While at the Guildhall he sung in several opera productions there. These included Sid in Britten's Albert Herring, The Lodger in Dominick Argento's The Aspern Papers, the Devil in Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki, and Eumée in Fauré's Pénélope, as well as appearing in staged scenes from a variety of other operas.

By the time he graduated from the Guildhall he was already known as a winner of major vocal prizes and for having started his international career. In 1997, he won the National Mozart Competition in England. The same year he took part in the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival in Europe. Also in 1997 he won the Young Concert Artists European Auditions in Leipzig. This enabled him to go on to the 1998 Young Concert Artists International Audition in New York. He was also invited by singers Thomas Hampson and Andreas Schmidt to sing in their master classes in England.

In that competition, he also won the Orchestra New England Soloist Prize, which enabled him to make a solo debut with that orchestra, and The Walker Fund Debut Prize, which carried with it sponsorship of a debut recital in the Young Concert Artists Series at New York's 92nd Street Y in 1999.

He also won the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition in 1999 and also sang a performance of Robert Schumann's Liederkries in Wigmore's Schumann series. He is already recognized as an excellent Lieder singer who has performed Schubert's Winterreise and Schwanengesang, Brahms' Die schöne Magelone, and songs of Mendelssohn, Duparc, Poulenc, and Britten. The London Times said that his enunciation " ... set an example to British singers by getting every word of his Britten across. ... " As a recital singer, some of the world's leading accompanists have agreed to partner him, including Alexander Schmalcz, Roger Vignoles, Eugene Asti, and Graham Johnson. He has recorded entries in the Mendelssohn and Schubert song series on the Hyperion label with Asti and Johnson, respectively.

As a concert artist he has sung such major works as Brahms' Deutsches Requiem, Mendelssohn's Paulus, Bach's St. John and St. Matthew Passions and B Minor Mass, Haydn's "Nelson" Mass and Die Jahreszeiten, Handel's Messiah and several Bach cantatas. Conductors he has worked with include Jane Glover, Marcus Creed, Philippe Herreweghe, Stephen Layton, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. After recording Bach cantatas with Gardiner, the conductor invited Loges back to participated in Gardiner's Bach 2000 series.

He began an operatic career with England's Opera North and Scottish Opera, which assigned him in his first year to cover (i.e., understudy) the roles of Mountjoy in Britten's Gloriana and the Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. He sang a part in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos in concert with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conducting, and then debuted as Mozart's Count with Opera North.