Julia Kirchner is a versatile soprano singer with a wide musical range and specializes in vocal solo repertoire of the 17th century onwards. Known for her warm vocal tone, emotional depth, high musical intelligence, nuanced interpretation, and deep understanding of texts, she strives for a natural and authentic singing style. She has a passion for exploring the stylistic, aesthetic, and historical background of her repertoire.
Born in Thuringia, Germany, Julia Kirchner grew up with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose Passions, solo cantatas, and Mass in B minor are particularly close to her heart. She has her professional and musical anchor in Basel, where she is leading the concert series tesori della musica. She draws her artistic inspiration from nature and the picturesque villages of her adopted home in southern France.
Julia Kirchner's musical focus lies particularly on solo cantatas from the Baroque period, Baroque opera, and the repertoire of lieder and oratorios.
She holds a special place for the works of Georg Friedrich Handel, with a particular affinity for the roles of enchantresses such as Alcina (in Alcina) and Armida (in Rinaldo). She has also performed the role of Aminta (in the cantata Aminta e Fillide) in a Baroque-styled production by her ensemble scenitas. In addition to oratorios such as Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, L'Allegro, il Pensieroso ed il Moderato, Athalia, and Messiah, she devotes herself intensively to solo cantatas and motets such as Lucrezia, Armida abbandonata, and Silete venti, which she regularly performs with her own instrumental ensembles.
On the opera stage, she has sung roles including Ottavia (Monteverdi), Polixène and Proserpine (Lully), Alcina (Handel), Venus (Kusser), Vespetta (Telemann), Diana (Hasse), and the Witch (Humperdinck). Currently, she is studying the parts of Mozart's Contessa and Bizet's Micaëla.
In the realm of oratorios, Julia Kirchner has an extensive repertoire that includes not only baroque and classical works but also German and Italian Romantic oratorios by composers such as Mendelssohn, Brahms, Rossini, as well as French choral symphonies, including Poulenc's Gloria and Honegger's Le Roi David.
Her concert series tesori della musica in Basel focuses on solo programmes with chamber instrumental ensembles. The series has two main objectives: making audiences acquainted with musical treasures by forgotten composers and presenting rarely performed works by well-known composers. She combines these works with dramatic solo cantatas such as Telemann's Ino, Beethoven's Ah perfido, and Haydn's Berenice, performed in a Baroque-styled manner.
Since the beginning of her career, Julia Kirchner has dedicated herself extensively to art song, specializing in unique programmes, sometimes presented in the form of lecture recitals (e.g., Eichendorff, Liszt) in collaboration with her pianist partners Nao Aiba (LiedduoWeimar) and Suguru Ito. Being deeply connected to historically informed performance practice, she considers it essential to incorporate appropriate period instruments. Consequently, she collaborates with fortepiano specialists such as David Blunden and Thomas Leininger. With harpist Vera Schnider, she researches repertoire for voice and harp around 1800, played on a French single-action pedal harp. They also interpret Romantic repertoire such as Debussy's Mélodies using a 19th-century Erard harp.
She regularly performs at festivals such as the Handel Festival in Halle, the Bach Festival in Leipzig, the styriarte Graz, and La Chaise-Dieu. She has appeared at opera houses including Theater Basel, Teatro Olimpico Vicenza, and the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, as well as concert venues like the Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Wien, and Gewandhaus Leipzig. She collaborates with conductors such as Michael Hofstetter, Sigiswald Kuijken, Andrea Marcon, and Michael Schneider.
With the Baroque ensemble scenitas, Julia Kirchner has delved into the fascinating world of Baroque gesture, which she has studied for many years. Two of her own productions within the Handel Festspiele in Halle, in collaboration with stage director Sigrid T'Hooft, have been highlights of her work with this ensemble.
Julia Kirchner studied classical and historical singing, vocal pedagogy, song interpretation, and Romance studies in Leipzig, Basel, London, Rome, and Weimar. Her teachers include Prof. Jeanette Favaro-Reuter, Prof. Ulrich Messthaler, Prof. Karl-Peter Kammerlander, Penelope MacKay, and Sara Mingardo. She has also received important inspiration from Margreet Honig, Susanne Scholz, and René Jacobs.
She is a prize winner and finalist of various competitions, most recently at Voci Olimpiche in Vicenza in 2019. Her artistic work has been documented through several radio and television recordings, as well as CD productions.
In 2023, Julia Kirchner will perform as Alcina with the Freitagsakademie Bern in Handel's opera of the same name (directed by Nikolaus Habjan) on a tour of various Swiss theatres. She will also portray the role of Eurydice in Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice in two different productions and versions: with Valer Sabadus under Michael Hofstetter at the Eckhoftheater Gotha, and under Antonius Adamske in Bremen in the Paris version. Additionally, she has various chamber music concerts and oratorios scheduled.
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