Martin Hässler & Michael Sikich

Leeds Lieder Young Artists 2018

Martin Hässler baritone

Martin Hässler won second prize at Thomas Quasthoff’s Das Lied, International Song Competition (2011), first prize at Bundeswettbewerb Gesang Berlin – junior (2010), and Best Singer’s Award at the Gerald Moore Competition London (2010). He is an alumnus of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied with Rudolf Piernay and Janice Chapman.

​As a recitalist Martin has sung at the Berlin Philharmonie, Deutsche Oper Berlin accompanied by Philip Moll, Schloss Herten (Klavierfestival Ruhr) with Graham Johnson, the Oxford Lieder Festival with Sholto Kynoch, LSO St. Luke’s and at the Vienna Musikverein with Marek Ruszczynski. In 2012 he took part in the BBC’s Schubert Festival accompanied by Graham Johnson. Other recent highlights include his début at the Wigmore Hall in June 2013, recitals in Paris (Fondation Singer-Polignac), Amsterdam and Schubert’s Winterreise at Milton Court in London.

​Concert appearances include Bach’s Passions, Haydn’s The Creation and Stabat Mater, Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (under Howard Arman) and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem as well as Mendelssohn’s Elias and Paulus. In December 2012 he gave his début at the Gewandhaus Leipzig with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and in 2016 with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Handel’s Jephtha at Tonhalle Zürich.

In 2016 he made his début at Garsington Opera as Captain in Eugene Onegin. Opera appearances at the Guildhall School in 2014/15 include Dvořák’s The Cunning Peasant, Donizetti’s I pazzi per progetto and Hans Werner Henze’s Ein Landarzt and Phaedra. In 2009 he was a prize winner at Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg and sang Collatinus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with the company. A year later he also appeared as Siegfried in Schumann’s Genoveva at Tonhalle Düsseldorf.

 

Future appearances include Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with Sholto Kynoch in Heidelberg and Berlin, Handel’s Messiah at Tonhalle Zürich as well as Lliam Paterson’s The 8th Door at Scottish Opera.

Michael Sikich piano

American pianist Michael Sikich, 24, is a recipient of the piano accompaniment prize from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he is completing a postgraduate degree in vocal accompaniment on scholarship with Julius Drake. He was invited to perform in Graham Johnson’s Song Guild and was a semi-finalist in the 2017 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition. Praised by the Herald Times as a “genuine talent,” he was a recipient of the Somerset Song Prize for best pianist. Recent and forthcoming recitals include appearances in Germany and around the UK, most notably at the Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, LSO St. Lukes, Oxford Lieder Festival, and on a broadcast for BBC Radio 3. This August, he will perform a recital celebrating the Bernstein centennial with the acclaimed Canadian mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta for the BBC Proms. A recipient of many awards as a solo pianist, he gave his début recital in the Belz-Parker Young Artist Series and has performed with orchestras throughout the United States. He attended the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Franz Schubert Institut in Austria, studying with teachers including Yoheved Kaplinsky, Helmut Deutsch, and Roger Vignoles.  In the Summer of 2018, he will work with singers as a vocal piano fellow at the prestigious Music Academy of the West Summer Festival in Santa Barbara, California.