Berlin-based German-British tenor Kieran Carrel first gained international recognition in 2020, when he was awarded Second Prize at the prestigious Bundeswettbewerb Gesang. He began laying the foundations for his singing career at an early age as a member of the Gütersloh Boys’ Choir. The son of a German mother and an English father, he grew up bilingual and draws on a deeply rooted cultural identity that informs his musical expression both on stage and in the concert hall. He began his vocal studies with Christoph Prégardien in Cologne and continued at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Neil Mackie. He also received important artistic inspiration from Thomas Hampson and Hartmut Höll at the Heidelberg Lied Academy.
As a permanent ensemble member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carrel is building an extensive repertoire of the leading tenor roles with remarkable versatility. His repertoire includes Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Walther (Tannhäuser), Erik (Der fliegende Holländer), Froh (Das Rheingold), Narraboth (Salome), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and the Marquis of Chateauneuf (Zar und Zimmermann). Guest engagements have taken him to leading opera houses and concert halls as well as renowned festivals, including the Bregenz Festival, Glyndebourne Festival, Bayreuth Festival, Cologne Opera, Leipzig Opera, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Wigmore Hall, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, Heidelberger Frühling, and Schubertiade Schwarzenberg.
Equally vital to his artistic identity is his work in concert and song repertoire. Carrel has performed Tippett’s A Child of Our Time at the Glyndebourne Festival, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Evangelist in Bach’s St John Passion with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. In the current season, he will sing Britten’s War Requiem at the Staatstheater Darmstadt under Daniel Cohen, Haydn’s The Seasons at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under Marc Minkowski, and Haydn’s The Creation with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Joana Mallwitz—this latter performance will also be recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. He will also appear in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and sing the Evangelist in the St Matthew Passion with the Noord Nederlands Orkest.
Kieran Carrel is equally passionate about concert and song repertoire. He regularly collaborates with leading orchestras and ensembles, including the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. His musical partners have included Marc Minkowski, Joana Mallwitz, Oksana Lyniv, Daniel Cohen, Christoph Prégardien, András Schiff, Julius Drake, and Graham Johnson.
At his home opera house, Deutsche Oper Berlin, he will take on several major roles, including Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), his role debut as Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), the Evangelist in a staged production of Bach’s St Matthew Passion under Alessandro De Marchi, and Narraboth in Strauss’s Salome. He will also return to Cologne Opera as Tamino. Following his Bayreuth debut in 2026, he was immediately re-invited for the 2027 Festival, where he will appear as Walther von der Vogelweide in Tobias Kratzer’s acclaimed production of Tannhäuser under the musical direction of Thomas Guggeis.
Highlights of the 2026/27 concert season include a major European tour with Ensemble Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon in Mozart’s Mass in C minor, with performances in Bordeaux, Versailles, Vienna, London, Paris, and Amsterdam; Haydn’s The Creation with the period-instrument ensemble Barucco and the Wiener Singakademie under Heinz Ferlesch at the Vienna Konzerthaus; Bach’s Mass in B minor at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam; and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Petr Popelka in Copenhagen. He also appears with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Raphaël Pichon, performs Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Dresden Philharmonic under Sir Donald Runnicles, and sings in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex under Alan Gilbert with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Kieran concludes the concert season in Utrecht with Mendelssohn’s Elijah under Karina Canellakis with the Groot Omroepkoor and Radio Filharmonisch Orkest.
Austrian mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert is one of the most distinguished singers of her generation. Born into a musical family, she received early training in violin and piano before beginning voice lessons with her mother, soprano Sigrid Rennert, at the age of twelve. She studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Karlheinz Hanser and Charles Spencer, and received formative artistic impulses in masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Ann Murray and Helmut Deutsch. Sophie Rennert is a prizewinner of the International Mozart Competition Salzburg and the Innsbruck Cesti Competition for Baroque Singing, and was selected as a featured artist in the Vienna Konzerthaus’s Great Talents series.
Her guest engagements have taken her to renowned venues and concert halls including Theater an der Wien, Nationaltheater Mannheim, the Vienna Musikverein, Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, as well as to the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. She has a particularly close artistic association with the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and Hohenems, where she regularly captivates audiences with expressive song recitals.
Her extensive repertoire reflects an exceptional stylistic versatility. On the opera stage, her roles include Carmen, Dorabella, Donna Elvira, Cherubino, Ruggiero, Nicklausse, Prince Orlofsky, Rosina, Hänsel, Angelina and Charlotte. Her concert repertoire ranges from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Mozart’s Requiem and Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and works by Gustav Mahler. Her Baroque repertoire includes leading roles such as Vivaldi’s Irene (Tamerlano), Handel’s Piacere (Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno) and Cesti’s Gloria Austriaca/Giunone (Il Pomo d’Oro), while her repertoire also extends into contemporary music, including Peter Eötvös’s Angels in America (Harper Pitt) and Gottfried von Einem’s Der Besuch der alten Dame (Claire Zachanassian).
Sophie Rennert regularly collaborates with leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orquesta Nacional de España and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Her musical partners include conductors such as David Afkham, Ivor Bolton, Semyon Bychkov, Ottavio Dantone, Ádám Fischer, Philippe Jordan, Joana Mallwitz, Jordi Savall and Andreas Spering. In the field of song, she works with renowned pianists including Joseph Middleton, Graham Johnson, Ammiel Bushakevitz, Julius Drake and Helmut Deutsch.
The 2026/27 season takes Sophie Rennert to leading stages across Europe and features a number of significant debuts and return engagements. She makes an important house debut at Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels as Angelina in a new production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, directed by Daniel Kramer and conducted by Speranza Scappucci and Stefano Sarzani. In Antwerp, she takes on the title role in Berlioz’s Orphée under Francesco Corti, before returning to the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music at the end of the season as Apamia in A. Bononcini’s Tigrane under Ottavio Dantone.
On the concert platform, she appears as Vivaldi’s Rosmira alongside the Accademia Bizantina, with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Akamus) at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and in Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen. She also gives song recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, in Oxford, at the Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie in Stuttgart and in Frankfurt
Numerous recordings document her artistic work, including Leopold Mozart’s Missa Solemnis, Handel’s Lotario, Brahms songs with Graham Johnson, Vivaldi’s Tamerlano under Ottavio Dantone, and the album Von den Göttern weiß ich nichts, featuring vocal works by Uli Rennert. Together with pianist Joseph Middleton, Sophie Rennert recorded the Franz Schubert album Irrlichter, released by BIS Records in April 2026. Recorded at the Markus-Sittikus-Saal in Hohenems, the album received widespread critical acclaim and was awarded five stars and named a 'Vocal Choice' by BBC Music Magazine.
