Thomas Hampson

Biography

Thomas Hampson was born on June 26, 1955 in Elkhart, Indiana (United States) and grew up in Spokane, Washington.

His singing talents were quickly detected and perfected by various teachers. He studied singing and mastered his baritone organ with excellent teachers and celebrities such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Leonard Bernstein, whose advice he retained.

Thomas Hampson is also active in the fields of opera, concert, recital, musicology, research and pedagogy. His discography includes more than 170 titles, crowned by a Grammy Award, five Edison Awards and the Grand Prix du disque. "Kammersänger" of the Vienna Staatsoper and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, he has been named "Singer of the Year" four times by the Echo Klassik-Preis.

He is one of the leading interpreters of the Lieder repertoire and, with his project “Song of America”, has become the ambassador of American melody. Thomas Hampson has been named “Met Mastersinger” by the Metropolitan Opera Guild and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was recently inducted into Gramophone’s 2013 “Hall of Fame”.

Thomas Hampson devotes his passion for classical singing to the Hampsong Foundation, of which he is the founder and artistic director. The foundation, established in 2003, supports international dialogue, knowledge of classical singing through teaching and interdisciplinary collaborations. Thomas Hampson holds honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music, the New England Conservatory, Whitworth College and the San Francisco Conservatory, an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London and an honorary professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. He was the first artist to be named artist-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic, and received the Concertgebouw Prize in 2011. Special Advisor to the Library of Congress for Music in America, he also received the Austrian Medal of Honor for Arts and Sciences.

Source: operadeparis.fr