Gotthold Schwarz

Schwarz was the son of the cantor of St. Paul Church in Zwickau, which gave him an early contact with music. He began his musical career in 1964 as a member of the Thomanerchor, the boys' choir in Leipzig founded in 1212 and directed by Johann Sebastian Bach, among others, as the Thomaskantor. Schwarz has collaborated with the choir since in several functions. After completion of a church music education at the College of Church Music in Dresden, he studied voice, organ, and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig. After graduation, he worked as a cantatas and oratorio singer. In 1979, he was appointed by Hans-Joachim Rotzsch as vocal coach of the Thomanerchor, serving also as a deputy and interim cantor in 1992, 1999 and 2002/03. In 2011, he served as an interim conductor for Georg Christoph Biller. Schwarz sang with conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Peter Schreier, Martin Haselböck, and with ensembles including the Gewandhausorchester and the Dresdner Kreuzchor. He has performed at the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna Musikverein, and in the US, Finland and Japan. He has also recorded several Bach cantatas with Gardiner as part of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. Increasingly, Schwarz has appeared as a conductor. He founded his own ensembles Concerto Vocale Leipzig in 1984 and the Sächsisches Barockorchester (Saxon Baroque Orchestra) in 1990. As a guest conductor he worked with the choir and orchestra of the Gewandhaus. In 1993, he founded with gambist Siegfried Pank and organist Hans Christoph Becker-Foss a baroque trio in order to perform mostly music of the Bach family, but also other Baroque music. Schwarz has been a teacher at the Hochschule für Musik "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" since 1986. He was a juror of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in 2004. He resides in Leipzig. On 9 June 2016 he was selected as Thomaskantor in a term lasting until 2021.