Thomas Quasthoff
(born November 9, 1959,
Hildesheim
, Germany) is a German singer whose powerful bass-baritone voice placed him among the
preeminent
classical vocalists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Quasthoff was born with severe disabilities, the result of his mother’s having taken the drug
thalidomide
during her early pregnancy as a treatment for morning sickness. The long bones of Quasthoff’s arms failed to develop, and his right foot faced backward. He spent his first year in a cast to correct his foot and was then confined for the next six years in a residential institution for children with severe disabilities.
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Quasthoff began his vocal training in 1972 with Charlotte Lehmann in
Hannover
,
Germany
. Refused entry into a
music conservatory
because his disabilities precluded playing an instrument, he studied law for three years and spent his spare time
singing
with jazz bands. He became a great admirer of
Frank Sinatra
. Quasthoff’s classical
music
career got its start in 1988 when he won first prize in the ARD International Music Competition in
Munich
. Two years later he ended his studies with Lehmann and took a day job as a radio announcer in Hannover.
In 1996 Quasthoff began to move into the musical spotlight when he won the Shostakovich Prize (awarded to outstanding artists?especially musicians?of international distinction) in Moscow as well as a major award at the
Edinburgh International Festival
. The next year he made his concert
debut
with Sir
Simon Rattle
and the
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
, performing
Joseph Haydn
’s oratorio
The Creation
. Success began to build upon success, leading to his first engagement with the
New York Philharmonic
, singing
Gustav Mahler
’s
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
, in 1998.
The acclaim that attended Quasthoff’s performances yielded a recording contract with the Deutsche Grammophon label in 1999, and he proved to be an immediate sensation. His initial recording,
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
, with
Anne Sofie von Otter
and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by
Claudio Abbado
, won a
Grammy Award
in 2000. The following year, his recording of
lieder
by
Johannes Brahms
and
Franz Liszt
won a Cannes Classical Award. (The Cannes Classical Awards, established in 1995, are given to several categories of recordings and are awarded annually in Cannes, France, by an international jury made up of critics from Hungary, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States.)
In 2003 Quasthoff made his
opera
debut, singing the role of Don Fernando in a production of
Ludwig van Beethoven
’s
Fidelio
with Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in Salzburg, Austria. He made his
Vienna State Opera
debut in 2004 as Amfortas in
Richard Wagner
’s
Parsifal
. Over the following years, Quasthoff became one of the world’s most highly acclaimed classical vocalists, touring the
United States
and Europe, performing with major orchestras and conductors, and appearing at summer music festivals. He also enjoyed success in the realm of
jazz
, notably with his award-winning release
Watch What Happens: The Jazz Album
in 2007 and as an
R&B
stylist on the album
Tell It Like It Is
(2010).
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Quasthoff retired from classical singing in 2012, two years after the death of his brother from
lung cancer
. He claimed that the psychological trauma of that event
diminished
his singing abilities. Nonetheless, he remained active in music, teaching and occasionally conducting and performing. In 2021 he made appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival singing jazz with his quartet and playing the spoken role of the majordomo in
Richard Strauss
’s opera
Ariadne auf Naxos
.
Quasthoff released an autobiography,
The Voice
, in 2008.