In addition, the young artists will have the opportunity to participate in the NEUE STIMMEN master classes (for opera music and lieder) and workshops, which the Bertelsmann Stiftung uses to provide the performers with ongoing support. They will also have the chance to participate in concerts held in Germany and other countries. Moreover, they could receive a scholarship from the International Opera Studio, part of Berlin’s Staatsoper im Schiller Theater which is supported by the Liz Mohn Foundation for Culture and Music. The competition will conclude with a concert by the winners that will be held in Berlin in spring 2016.
From May 7 to August 12, 2015, the promising young artists will be able to demonstrate their abilities at auditions in 26 cities around the globe: Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Chicago, Cluj-Napoca, Gothenburg, Kiev, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, Moscow, Munich, New York, Prague, Riga, Rome, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Sydney, Tbilisi, Toronto, Vienna, Vilnius and Yokosuka. Brian Dickie, former director of the Chicago Opera Theater, and Evamaria Wieser, artistic advisor at the Lyric Opera Chicago and director of the Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project, will be leading the auditions, which will be used to choose the 40 to 45 singers who will be invited to participate in the finals in Gütersloh.
Applications can be submitted until March 31, 2015, on the website www.neue-stimmen.de/wettbewerb/bewerbung-2015. For the first time, the age limit for participating in the competition has been lowered; the maximum age for female singers is now 28, the maximum age for male singers is 30.
More than 1,400 young talents from 69 countries worldwide applied to participate in the 2013 competition. First prize was awarded to sopranos Nicole Car (Australia) and Nadine Sierra (USA) and tenor Myong-Hyun Lee (South Korea).
About NEUE STIMMEN:
Founded in 1987 by Liz Mohn, the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s NEUE STIMMEN International Singing competition is considered one of the most important international events for young opera talents. The competition allows up-and-coming performers to make contact with jury members, opera house managers and agents. “We want to discover promising talents from around the globe in order to open doors for them, including doors leading to mutual understanding, and to offer them ongoing advice and support as they head down their career paths. I would therefore like to encourage them to apply and become part of the NEUE STIMMEN family,” says Liz Mohn, president of NEUE STIMMEN and vice-chair of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Executive Board. “Our international competition and its numerous partners offer next-generation singers a valuable opportunity to show what they can do, to learn from each other and to network.”
The NEUE STIMMEN competition has already helped numerous young performers launch major careers, including Vesselina Kasarova, René Pape, Nathalie Stutzmann, Roman Trekel, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Dietrich Henschel, Angelika Kirchschlager, Anna Samuil, Maxim Mironov, Marina Rebeka, Olga Bezsmertna and Christiane Karg.
