Sophie Rennert

The Austrian mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert learnt to play the violin and the piano before she began her voice studies with her mother, well known soprano and voice teacher Sigrid Rennert. In 2014, she graduated with distinction from the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts under Karlheinz Hanser and Charles Spencer. She has attended master classes with Brigitte Fassbaender, Ann Murray and Helmut Deutsch.

Sophie Rennert is a prize winner of many national and international voice competitions: 2nd Prize and Audience Price in the 7th International Cesti Competition for baroque opera in Innsbruck 2016, In 2014 she won the 3rd Prize of the 11th International Mozart Competition Salzburg In January 2014, she added a first prize at the Musica Juventutis competition which included the invitation for a recital at the Vienna Konzerthaus. In 2013 she was awarded the promotion prize of the Association of the Friends of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and the Prize of the Prof. Armin Weltner Foundation supporting singers of Austrian and Swiss nationality.

Sophie has worked with renowned conductors and orchestras, such as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Philippe Jordan, the Mozarteum Orchestra with Ádám Fischer, Ivor Bolton (Salzburg Festival 2013), Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (Mozart: Idomeneo 2016) and Laurence Cummings (Haendel: «Lotario», 2017), with Camerata Salzburg and the Bruckner Orchester Linz.

Sophie has become a demanded recital and concert singer who has appeared in Graz and Vienna Musikverein. She has become a regular guest at the Schubertiade in Hohenems and the Wiener Konzerthaus. Graham Johnson invited the young mezzo-soprano to give her UK debut at Leeds and to be part of a Schubert programme at Vienna Konzerthaus in 2017. In 2014, her CD «Von den Göttern weiss ich nichts» with contemporary songs by Uli Rennert was released.

In 2013 Sophie Rennert was part of the Young Singers Project at Salzburg Festival- From 2014-2016 she was a member of the Konzert Theater Bern (Switzerland).

Her opera repertoire includes roles from the baroque (e.g. Purcell: «Dido and Aeneas» or Haendel: «Susanna»), Mozart (Cherubino, Dorabella, Sesto) and the operetta (Prince Orlofsky) reaching to contemporary opera (Wife/Mark-Anthony Turnage: «Greek»).

During the season 2016/17, Sophie had big success as Idamante in Mozart's «Idomeneo» at the Landestheater in Salzburg under the baton of Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, in the title role of Haendel's «Lotario» at the Goettingen Haendel Festival with Laurence Cummings and as Andronico in Vivaldi's «Tamerlano» with the Ensemble Les Accents under Thibault Noally in Dortmund.

After her Bayreuth festival debut as one of Klingsor's Flowermaidens in Wagner's «Parsifal», in 2017 where Sophie will also return in 2018, a series of opera and recital appearances have been planned: Together with recitals at the Festival of Ancient Music Innsbruck, the Belfast International Arts Festival, the Wigmore Hall London, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and Hohenems and in the framework of the «Great Talent» Series of Vienna Konzerthaus, she will perform the role of Angelina in Rossini's «La Cenerentola» in Mannheim and tour China with the Young Singer's Project of the Salzburg Festival.

(8/2017)