Simply a Song
An intense form of art
He who rises to the challenge of the musical genre “Lied” (“song” in English) will be measured against such famous and outstanding singers as Brigitte Fassbaender, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and last but not least Thomas Quasthoff.
The aim of the “Das Lied — International Song Competition”, established by Thomas Quasthoff in 2009, is to find equally talented successors and to discover new voices.
As well as receiving considerable prize money in the form of a yearly scholarship, prizewinners of the competition also have the opportunity of performing in some of the most important concert halls and stages of the world such as the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Lucerne Festival, the Berlin Philharmonic and Cologne Philharmonic, the Schubertiade in the far-western Austrian town of Schwarzenberg, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Vienna Musikverein and the Wigmore Hall in London.
For years, Thomas Quasthoff has devoted himself to the “Lied” genre, the short but expressive art form composed of words and sound which cannot hide behind an orchestra, a mask or a production. He uses one sentence to describe what makes the “Lied” so difficult: “I stand more or less naked infront of the audience, and in just three minutes I have to give everything, whereas in an opera I would have three hours to do the same.”
The song competition “Das Lied”, for gifted singers and their pianists, takes place every two years in Berlin. The next competition takes place from 20 to 24 February 2013.
Detailed information can be found on the website www.das-lied.com.