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The Swiss baritone and music pedagogue, Kurt Widmer, visited the teacher seminar in Rorschach and informed six years long in Zürich. He studied violin playing and singing (with Ria Ginster) at the Conservatory of Zürich, then with Paul Lohmann and Franziska Martienssen Lohmann in Luzern and Wiesbaden and with Burga Schwarzbach in Vienna. In 1967 he won the Soloist Prize of the Schweizerischen Tonkünstlervereins (The Swiss Composers’ Association).
Since 1966 Kurt Widmer appeared as a concert singer in Switzerland, then also on international level, to a great career. He sang at concerts throughout Europe, Israel, the USA, Canada, Russia and Japan under prominent conductors (Rafael Frühbeck de Bourgos, Michael Gielen, Paul Sacher, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Jesús López-Cobos). He participated at the Festival Weeks of Montreux and at the English Bach Festival in London, at the Festival Weeks of Luzern, at the Israel Festival, at the Schwetzinger Festival, at Brighton Festival and at the Festival of Strasbourg. He could be heard in Switzerland (Basel, Berne, Zürich, Geneva, Lugano, Lausanne) and in Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt a.M., Hamburg, Köln, Munich, Stuttgart), in Vienna and Graz, in Milan, Rome, Turin, Triest and Naples, in Paris, Brussels and Lüttich, in Amsterdam, London and Rotterdam, in Dresden, Leipzig and Bratislava, in Madrid, Valencia and Lisbon, at the Salzburg Festival (1978 in a Mozart concert) and at the Cleveland Festival, in Budapest, at the Festival of Wroclaw (Breslau) and with at the German Bach Festival in Mainz. Other festivals in which he participated are: Zürich, Donaueschingen, Ludwigsburg, Breslau, Turin, and Vienna.
Kurt Widmer's repertoire in the areas of the oratorios and the sacred vocal music had a nearly inexhaustible extent and contained works of J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel and masters Baroque epoch up to contemporary compositions. He created several vocal works of modern composers such as R. Kelterborn, Armin Schibler, H. Sutermeister and Klaus Huber. So far, he sang in more than 100 premieres. From the very start until today, his primary interest were Lieder. In this area he performed the Lieder of the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck, as well as Lieder of Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Mussorgsky, R. Strauss, Arthur Honegger and Benjamin Britten. On the stage he appeared only occasionally, sang however roles in concertante and radio performances of operas.
The repertoire of Kurt Widmer's many records and radio recordings ranges from Machaut’s Mass to contemporary works. He participated in numerous recordings, including: on Harmonia Mundi (Schöpfung by Haydn, Deutsches Requiem by J. Brahms, Johannes-Passion by Scarlatti, Missa Solemnis by L.v. Beethoven), Toccata (Winterreise by Schubert), Electrola (Works of Carissimi and Heinrich Schütz), Philips (Requiem by Cimarosa), BASF (Penthesilea by O. Schoeck), Vox (Oratorios Schöpfung and Jahreszeiten by Haydn), DGG (Works of G. de Machaut, Benedetto Marcello), HMV (Johannes-Passion (BWV 245) by J.S. Bach), Jecklin-Disco (Lieder of Schubert, W.A. Mozart und A. Zemlinsky), Erato (Works of M.A. Charpentier, Der Tod Jesu by Graun, works of Heinrich Schütz und Jan Dismas Zelenka), Calig-Verlag (Weihnachts-Oratorium by Camille Saint-Saëns), Schwann (Requiem of Gabriel Fauré), Pan (Lieder of O. Schoeck and W. Burkhard), Amati (Mozart und Salieri by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov). Kurt Widmer was awarded a number of prizes for records (Prix mondial du disque, Grand Prix du disque, Diaposon d’or Prix de l'Académie du disque Français, Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik).
Since 1968 Kurt Widmer worked as a pedagogue at the Musikakademie of Basel. He also taught at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He was an acclaimed voice teacher. He held master classes in Bolzano, Kufstein, Linz, Moscow, Salzburg, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Trier, Vaduz and Vienna. Among the many singers who studied with him and/or attended him master-classes: Ekkehard Abele (Bass-Baritone), Lina Maria Äkerlund (Soprano), Marion Ammann (Soprano), Ulrike Andersen (Contralto), Andrea Artmann (Soprano), Judith Bechter (Soprano), Claudio Cavina (Counter-tenor), Fabio Cusinato (Conductor), Martina Daxböck (Soprano), Julia Diefenbach (Mezzo-soprano), Matthias Ebner (Baritone), Katrin Edelmann (Contralto/Mezzo-soprano), Ursula Eittinger (Mezzo-soprano), Keiko Enomoto-Chaintreuil (Soprano), Ralf Ernst (Bass-Baritone), Nicolas Fink (Bass), Araceli Fernández González (Soprano), Miriam Feuersinger (Soprano), Montserrat Figueras (Soprano), Barbara Fink (Soprano), Irène Friedli (Mezzo-soprano), Laia Frigolé (Soprano), Cornelius Glaus (Counter-tenor), Martina Gmeinder (Mezzo-soprano), Birgit Görgner (Contralto), Ralf Grobe (Bass-Baritone), Werner Güra (Tenor), Katharina Hagopian (Soprano), Benoît Haller (Tenor), Christian Havel (Tenor), Fabrice Hayoz (Baritone), Maria Regina Heyne (Soprano), Sigrid Horvath (Contralto), Martin Hummel (Baritone), Mirko Janiska (Baritone), Jessica Jans (Soprano), Timo Janzen (Bass-Baritone), Clementine Jesdinsky (Soprano), Raphael Jud (Baritone), Anna Kargl (Mezzo-soprano), Claudia Kemmerer (Mezzo-soprano), Agnes Knoop (Soprano), Dorothee Labusch (Mezzo-soprano), Susanne Langholf (Soprano), Andreas Lebeda (Bass-Baritone), Andrea Letzing (Contralto), Sonja Leutwyler (Mezzo-soprano), Dagmar Linde (Contralto), Linda Loosli (Soprano), Heidrun Luchterhandt (Soprano), Judith Lüpold (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Tomàs Maxé (Bass-Baritone), Reinhard Mayr (Bass), Ulrich Messthaler (Bass), Marlene Mild (Soprano), Clemens Morgenthaler (Bass-Baritone), Mareike Morr (Mezzo-soprano), Asako Motojima (Soprano), Christian Mücke (Tenor), Barbara Müller (Contralto), Lea Elisabeth Müller (Mezzo-soprano), Martin B. Müller (Tenor), Roswitha Müller (Mezzo-soprano), Katharina van Nahmen (Soprano), Kazuko Nakano (Mezzo-soprano), Theresa Nelles (Soprano), Marcus Niedermeyr (Baritone), Claudia Nüsse (Contralto), Josep-Ramon Olivé (Baritone), Anaïs Oliveras (Soprano), Almut Panfilenko (Soprano), Valentin Parli (Bass), Andreas Pehl (Counter-tenor), Nina Maria Plangg (Soprano), Graham Pushee (Counter-tenor), Stefan Rampf (Bass), Stefan-Alexander Rankl (Tenor), Nuria Rial (Soprano), Anna Lucia Richter (Soprano), Cornelia Sander (Mezzo-soprano), Judit Scherrer (Soprano), Letizia Scherrer (Soprano), Verena Schmid (Soprano), Simon Schnorr (Baritone), Andrè Schuen (Baritone), Ursula Schulze (Soprano), Monika Schwabegger (Mezzo-soprano), Michael Schwarze (Baritone), Robert Sedlak (Tenor), Kai-Rouven Seeger (Baritone), Victor Soares (Counter-tenor), Raimonds Spogis (Baritone), Doris Steffan-Wagner (Soprano), Manuel Stöbel (Tenor), Thomas Ströckens (Tenor), Lena Sutor-Wernich (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Barbara Tišler (Soprano), Madeline Trösch (Soprano), Mojca Vedernjak (Mezzo-soprano), Stefan Vock (Bass-Baritone), Sebastian Voges (Baritone), Markus Volpert (Baritone), Dieter Wagner (Tenor), Jens Weber (Tenor), Maria Weber-Deger (Soprano), Christine Wehler (Contralto), Ute Weitkämper (Contralto/Mezzo-soprano) Hansje van Welbergen (Soprano), Silke Wenzel (Soprano), Beate Westerkamp (Mezzo-soprano), Oliver Widmer (Bass-Baritone), Elisabeth Wimmer (Soprano), William Wood (Bass), Frank Wörner (Bass-Baritone), Stefan Zenkl (Baritone).***
In 1985 Kurt Widmer was awarded the Regio Prize for Music of the Upper Rhine Association for the Promotion of the Economy. His son, Oliver Widmer became a well-known baritone like his father and the husband of Cecilia Bartoli. |
