German baritone Stephen Ganz was born in Erfurt and received his first musical training as a chorister of St. Thomas in Leipzig. Following vocal studies with Hans-Joachim Beyer at the conservatory of Leipzig, he worked with Mitsuko Shirai and Hartmut Hall at the conservatory of Karlsruhe as well as with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. International attention came with awards at such prestigious competitions as the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Hamburg and International Hugo Wolf Competition in Stuttgart. Opera companies with which Mr. Genz has appeared include the Berlin and Hamburg Staatsopers, Paris Opéra Bastille, Théatre des Champs-Elysées and Théatre du Chatelet, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Operas of Lausanne and Strasbourg, Semperoper Dresden and Aix-en-Provence Festival, collaborating with such conductors as Myung-Whun Chung, Marcus Creed, Gerd Albrecht, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Thomas Hengelbrock, Gustav Kuhn, Sigiswald Kuijken, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Fabio Luisi, Georges Pretre, Rene Jacobs, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Kurt Masur and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. In addition he has given concerts in America, South America, Canada, and throughout Europe, his repertoire includes the Brahms and Fauré’s Requiems (both of which he has recorded), Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and nearly all concert literature for lyric baritone. He enjoyed particular success performing the Britten War Requiem with James Judd and the Orchestra National de Lille in Paris. Perhaps most esteemed as an art-song interpreter of the first rank, Mr. Genz has been welcomed at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, New York’s Frick Collection and Alice Tully Hall, as well as on the major art-song series of Philadelphia, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Montreal, Cologne, Brussels, Paris, Florence, Aix-en-Provence, Tokyo, Florence and Feldkirch. His lieder recordings have earned some of the industry’s highest honours, including the Timbre de Platine, Diapason d`Or, and for his recording of Beethoven Lieder on Hyperion the Gramophone Award and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. In 1999 he was bestowed the Brahms Prize in Schleswig-Holstein and in 2000 was named “Young Artist of the Year” by Belgian music critics. In 2006-2007 he made his North American orchestral debut with the Brahms Requiem with the Indianapolis Symphony conducted by Mario Venzago.