PROF. DR. h.c. mult. EDITH WIENS

Resident Professor for All Repertoire

After her long and illustrous career, Edith Wiens enjoys mentoring young singers. Opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera New York, Covent Garden London, Frankfurt, Zurich and Munich Opera have engaged her students, who are equally at home in the concert world. She is a faculty member of the Juilliard School in New York, and is an affiliated teacher at the Lindemann Program at the Metropolitan Opera. She also gives masterclasses regularly at the Young Ensembles of the opera houses in Oslo, Zurich, Montreal, Frankfurt and Munich, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal College in London. Edith Wiens is the artistic director of the International Meistersinger Akademie, and during the entire residency, she will offer intensive training in interpretation, vocal technique and artistic development.

KS BRIGITTE FASSBAENDER

Patron of IMA, Guest Professor for German and Italian Opera

Legendary mezzosoprano Brigitte Fassbaender debuted at the age of 21 at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, which led to an international career spanning four decades in all areas of classical music. Showered with awards and honors worldwide, Ms. Fassbaender has always had a big heart for the next generation of singers. She is an important mentor known for supporting the careers of young singers. After retiring from the singing stage, she has now become a much sought-after stage director and has also acted as General Director of the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck and the Artistic Director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmish-Partenkirchen. We are proud that Ms. Fassbaender is IMA's patron.

THOMAS LAUSMANN

Opera Master Class

Thomas Lausmann was appointed Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera at the beginning of the 2019/20 season and served as Head of Music at the Vienna State Opera for the previous seven years. A frequent collaborator of Franz Welser-Möst, Marek Janowski and Christian Thielemann, he has served as principal coach at the Bayreuther Festspiele and the Salzburger Festspiele. Mr. Lausmann is a regular pianist with the Vienna Philharmonic playing piano, celesta, harpsichord and organ in concerts at home and on tour.

PÅL MOE

Guest Professor for Career Development

Pål Christian Moe was born in Oslo. After literature studies in London he decided to work in theatre, and started as stage manager at the Oslo Opera. Later he worked as vocal producer at Deutsche Grammophon, and then at the Paris Opera as director of artistic administration. In recent years he has specialized in free-lance casting, currently working for the Prague Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

MATTHEW HORNER

Guest Professor for Career Development

Matthew Horner is one of the most highly respected managers today. He is Vice President and Artist Manager at IMG Artists New York. Matthew Horner's many years of representing top artists make him ideally suited to advise our young artists, both in repertoire choices and in career development.

CRAIG TERRY

Guest Professor for American Song

Born in Tullahoma, Tennessee (USA), Craig Terry is a sought-after piano partner of many renowned singers, e.g. Stephanie Blythe, Christine Brewer, Nicole Cabell, Joseph Kaiser, Kate Lindsey, Danielle De Niese, Susanna Phillips and Joyce DiDonato. He tours the continents at the side of his stars. Currently Mr. Terry serves as Music Director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago after having spent eleven seasons at Lyric as Assistant Conductor. He has made his young ensemble one of the leading ensembles in the USA. As a gifted improviser on the piano, we are particularly happy that he leads and plays for the cabaret concert himself.

Tobias Truniger

Tobias Truniger is the director of the Young Ensemble of the Munich State Opera, which he has become one of the leading ensembles of its kind under his leadership. His mastery of style and language makes him indispensable, not only for IMA -- it also makes him a beloved coach of many professionals. Tobias Truniger has played recitals with Edith Wiens and Angelika Kirchschlager, and has toured the US with Stefan Loges, the winner of the Young Concert Artists Song Competition.

Marcelo Amaral

All German repertoire

Marcelo Amaral is Professor of Lied at the Nuremburg University of Music. He has collaborated with young singers in Ravinia at the Steans Institute, Stuttgart at the Hugo-Wolf-Akademie, and has given recitals in the Musikverein Vienna, in London's Wigmore Hall, in Berlin, as well as in New York. The New York Times praised him as “a superlative collaborator, with colorful, detailed and sensitive playing”.

Peggy Marmuth

Drama Coach

Peggy Marmuth works as a coach for German pronunciation, dialogues and recitatives, as well as a trainer for acting and for helping singers connecting their bodies to their voices. She also leads stage productions with students, works with opera singers, primarily at the Komische Oper Berlin where she coaches in productions of Barrie Kosky, Hans Neuenfels, Harry Kupfer, Robert Carson, Stefan Herheim among many others, She prepares singers for Salzburger Festspiele, La Scala Milano, and Mariinsky Theatre in Petersburg, to name a few and has collaborated with conductors including Kirill Petrenko, Vladimir Jurowski, Alessandro De Marchi, Franz Welser-Möst and others.

Alina Shevchenko

The Ukrainian pianist Alina Sevchenko has been a member of the International Opera Studio in Zurich since 2021. From the 23/24 season she will be engaged as a solo répétiteur at the Zurich Opera House. In 2019-2021 she was a member of the Opera Academy program at Teatr Wielki in Warsaw in the class of Olga Pasiecznik and Eytan Pessen. She is a prizewinner of the Polish Ministry of Culture's scholarship program "Gaude Polonia 2021" (Prof. Ewa Pobłocka, Warsaw, Poland) and winner of numerous competitions, including the 12th International Competition for the Art of Song Stuttgart 2020 (award of recognition together with Yuri Hadzetskyy) etc. From From 2016 to 2018 she was a scholarship holder of the President of Ukraine. As an excellent pianist and accompanist, she received awards at the Stanisław Moniuszko International Singing Competition in Warsaw (2022) and at the Vasyl Slipak International Singing Competition in Lviv (2020).

Jamie Andrews

Jamie Andrews is a British pianist, conductor and organist who is currently the Trainee Répétiteur at the English National Opera. Prior to this, Jamie was a Répétiteur Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, where he played for Handel’s Ariodante conducted by David Bates and a Martinů double bill conducted by Lada Valešová. Jamie also attended the 2024 Solti-Peretti course for répétiteurs, studying with Jonathan Papp, Rodrigo de Vera, Anthony Legge and Richard Bonynge. In the summer of 2024, he was the répétiteur for Garsington Opera’s production of Verdi’s Un giorno di regno. As an organist, Jamie was the Organ Scholar at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, from 2023–4 and at New College, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours in music. During his time at Oxford, he was a Répétiteur Scholar for New Chamber Opera, where he made his conducting debut in Spring 2023 with Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti.

Florent Mourier

French pianist Florent Mourier is based in London. He is specialised in vocal repertoire (art song and opera) and is much in demand as a recitalist and a vocal coach. Florent has played at the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Hall, Milton Court, St John’s Smith Square in London, the Holywell Music Room at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Festival d’Aix and Fondation Royaumont in France, Brussel’s La Monnaie, Classix Festival (Romania), Utrecht’s Tivoli Vredenburg and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in the Netherlands. Florent was a semi-finalist of Das Lied International Song Competition in Heidelberg, Germany along with mezzo-soprano Grace Durham. He was the official pianist of the 2022 Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition in Dublin and is looking forward to returning to Dublin for their next competition in January 2025. Florent has worked as a vocal coach/répétiteur/assistant conductor on productions of Zemlinsky’s Eine Florentinische Tragödie (Fondation Royaumont/Opéra de Rennes), Verdi’s Falstaff (Royaumont), Bizet’s Carmen (Barefoot Opera and Opera Holland Park), Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Opera North), Georgiana (Buxton Festival), Delibes's Margot La Rouge (Opera Holland Park) and Handel’s Arminio (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden). Florent is co-founder of the London Recording Days, a video recording service for singers, working with recordists Jan Capinski and Joseph Porter-Bolger. Florent graduated from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio in London. He was an ENOA Young Artist, a Britten-Pears Young Artist, a laureate of the Fondation Royaumont and a member of the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Florent now regularly works for the Guildhall School of Music, the National Opera Studio and the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is also a visiting coach at the Mascarade Opera Foundation in Florence. Florent holds dual citizenship from France and the UK.

Michael Latus

It is a great pleasure for us that Michael Latus, make-up artist at Armani, is coming to us. During his time with Yves Saint Laurent, he was awarded National Make-up Artist of the Year (2014). His program includes a general masterclass on how make-up can affect the impression onstage, as well as working with each singer individually. Michael has worked for television and casting shows in Germany and France, as well as for some of the major German publications. We are privileged to have him share his world-class expertise with our singers every year.