MEZZOSOPRANO

The Swiss Contralto Katharina Rikus was born in Liestal, being the daughter of Klaus Huber, composer. She studied singing at the "Musikakademie Basel", took the Opera Course at the "Musikhochschule Saarbrücken" and studied in Rome with Jolanda Magnoni. She furthered her studies with Prof. Gloria Davy at the Indiana University, Bloomington (USA). She was awarded various scholarships and prizes, among others the "Studienpreis des Schweizer Tonkünstlervereins" and a scholarship of the "Richard-Wagner-Verband". For three years she was a member of the "Kammeroper Frankfurt", where she performed leading parts in early operas from G.F.Händel, J.Haydn, W.A.Mozart and G.Rossini. With her Galatea form Acis and Galatea (G.F.Händel) she guested in Florence.
She appeared in several opera productions at the "Bremer Theater", performed at the "Festspielhaus Baden-Baden" (Parsifal) and sung the role of Antigone in the creation of Younghi Pagh-Paan's Opera Mondschatten at the "Staatstheater Stuttgart". With musicians of the "Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie" she sung Kindertotenlieder from G.Mahler and Wesendoncklieder from R.Wagner. Besides the classical concert repertory Katharina Rikus concentrates on the performing of contempory music: Her concerts, radio broadcasts and first performances of new works make her sing in the major centres of Europe. Within the last years Katharina Rikus was performing in many festivales for contempory music pieces like Pierrot lunaire (A. Schönberg), Folk Songs (L. Berio),  Ancient Voices of Children (G. Crumb), Le marteau sans maître (P. Boulez) and Die Seele muss vom Reittier steigen (K. Huber). During her career she worked with artists like Kent Nagano, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Lucas Vis and the Arditti-Quartett. From 1997-2018 Katharina Rikus ran a class at the "Hochschule für Künste"/Bremen (Germany). Since 2016 she is mastervoiceteacher at the "Mädchenkantorei am Bremer St. Petri Dom" and gives masterclasses in Germany, Holland, Italy and Switzerland.

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