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The German bass-baritone, Timo Leonard Janzen (aka: Timo Zimmer), started his career studying church music, music for schools, German literature and psychology at university in Osnabrück and Hannover. He then went on to take courses in opera under Professor Marie-Luise Gilles and Professor Carl-Heinz Müller at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover (HMTH -Hanover University for Music and Drama). The finishing touches were added to his training by taking master-classes and private lessons with Jessica Cash (London), Kurt Widmer (Basle), Walter Berry (Vienna), Bernd Weikl (Munich) and Thomas Quasthoff (Hannover).
In the meantime his repertoire embraces the complete spectrum ranging from Early Music to the Modern Age, although Timo Janzen still loves to return to his old favourites J.S. Bach, Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn and Riehm. He is particularly active on the concert stage performing at international festivals like the Göttingen International Handel Festival (Nicholas McGegan), the Edinburgh International Festival (Nott), the Music Festival in Old Krakow (Galonski), the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival (Jörg Straube) or the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival(Braun) and working with such renowned conductors as Nicholas McGegan, Thomas Hengelbrock, Jörg Straube, Christoph Poppen or Helmuth Rilling. Besides all this he is also particularly fond of singing Lieder and contemporary music. When it comes to interpreting roles he has also managed to make an excellent name for himself – in particular by performing in premieres of the works of such well known composers as Wilhelm Killmayer and Wolfgang Riehm (2002), Harald Genzmer (2003) or Peter Kiesewetter (2004) at the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste (Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts) and the Bayerische Theaterakademie „August Everding“ (August Everding College of Theatre)
Even as a student Timo Janzen was able to gather experience on the operatic stage and managed to extend his repertoire. His debut at the Opera Festival in Dankern as Malatesta (in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale) was quickly followed by Il conte di Almaviva (in W.A. Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro) and Count Liebenau (in Lortzing’s Waffenschmied/The Armourer). Later as Papageno (W.A. Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte) at the Bremer Theatre and at the Hanover State Opera under the direction of Reinhard Goebel with the Musica Antiqua Köln as Anfinomo (in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria).
At the same time Timo Janzen was also able to pursue his old passion – “ensemble singing” and became a regular member of one of the best professional choirs in the world - it also happened to be Leonard Bernstein’s favourite choir - the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks München (Bavarian Radio Choir). This gives him the opportunity to work with the best conductors (Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt,…), not to mention solo performances. |
as Timo Zimmer