Christine Schäfer . Julien Salemkour

In 2007, the magazine 'Opernwelt' chose soprano Christine Schäfer as opera singer of the year. That same year, she won the 'Echo Klassik' for the best Lieder CD of the year. She is up with the world's best in both opera and the more intimate song. She has gained much of her experience from numerous performances with great conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Sir Simon Rattle. In the Lieder repertoire she has been influenced by such great specialists as Irwin Gage and Graham Johnson. Schäfer is known for her often daring and innovative Lieder programmes, not shrinking from taking on the big cycles intended for men, such as 'Die Winterreise', or bringing the apparently opposite worlds of Purcell and Crumb, or Bach and Mahler together in an unexpected context. It will be interesting to see what is on the programme this time. She is accompanied by the young pianist-conductor Julien Salemkour, assistant to Daniel Barenboim at the Berliner Staatsoper since 2001. In 2006, he pulled off an unforgettable stunt by standing in at the last minute for an ailing Barenboim to conduct a Mozart concerto from the piano - without any rehearsal - a concert that was broadcast live in twenty-three countries.