The German soprano, Benita Borbonus, began her musical education at the age of three. After learning to play the cello and the piano she took the study of orchestral music at Freiburg Musikhochschule. After that she studied voice with Professor Ingeborg Möller in Freiburg all the same, and received her diploma with excellent marks.
As a lyric soprano Benita Borbonus has been performing on the operatic and concert stage for a number of years. She is very versatile singer and interested in many different styles of music. She has been a soloist with prestigious orchestras such as the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, the Bamberger Symphoniker and Concerto Köln. With the latter I have recorded Felix Mendelssohn's 42nd Psalm Wie der Hirsch schreit nach frischem Wasser. As a soloist with the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln (West German Radio Choir), she sang and recorded a broad variety ranging from gregorian chant (Christmas Matins, available on NEOS) to new music (Works by Y. Pagh-Paan, available on NEOS).
Benita Borbonus' repertoire as an oratorio singer ranges from early Baroque to the 21st century, with he favourite composers being J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn, whose chef d'oeuvres she has all been allowed to put to stage. In the last few years she has started to go on excursions into the larger scale, singing also the Requiems by Verdi and Benjamin Britten and Dvorak's
Stabat Mater, but without losing the noblesse and clarity of the voice.
Benita Borbonus am an enthusiastic chamber musician, which derives from her youth as a cellist. More and more she focus on Early Music, be it as part of an a-cappella group, with the ensembles Echo di Rheno and Chapelle Rhenane Strasbourg, or as a co-founder of my own ensembles Plan BAroque and CANTICORUM. From 2003 on she has been a steady member of the WDR Radio Chorus Cologne (WDR Rundfunkchor Köln).
When Benita Borbonus am not making music, she devotes herself to her other two passions: film-making, and her family, consisting of her partner Alexander Schmidt, and her daughter and son. |