The viola is the instrument that comes closest to the human voice. Its range corresponds to that of the human chest voice – which is why the warm sound of the viola and the human voice harmonise so beautifully. It is therefore somewhat surprising that there isn’t much more repertoire for this special pairing, which complements each other so well. Some of the most beautiful works for this combination feature on the programme for this gallery concert. There is much to look forward to, not only because of the unusual combination, but also because of mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert and Andreas Willwohl, principal violist with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, both of whom are appearing at the IHWA for the first time, and pianist Marcelo Amaral.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
The International Art Song Competition Stuttgart, which will be held for the 15th time in Stuttgart in 2026, is one of the largest and most renowned competitions for Lied duos in the world. The competition will be streamed live online and offers all young singers and pianists born after 31 December 1992 a platform to explore this particularly beautiful and challenging art form and present it to a large international audience. In addition to Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf as a constant ‘basis’, the repertoire of the 2026 competition will also focus on American composers as well as on five European female composers of the late 19th/early 20th century. Moreover, to mark the 100th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke's death this year, new Rilke settings have been commissioned from three contemporary international composers.
The 1st round is open to members of the Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie. Admission is free. Registration is requested: info@ihwa.de.
The International Art Song Competition Stutttgart, which will be held for the 15th time in Stuttgart in 2026, is one of the largest and most renowned competitions for Lied duos in the world. The competition will be streamed live online and offers all young singers and pianists born after 31 December 1992 a platform to explore this particularly beautiful and challenging art form and present it to a large international audience. In addition to Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf as a constant ‘basis’, the repertoire of the 2026 competition will also focus on American composers as well as on five European female composers of the late 19th/early 20th century. Moreover, to mark the 100th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke's death this year, new Rilke settings have been commissioned from three contemporary international composers.
The 1st round is open to members of the Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie. Admission is free. Registration is requested: info@ihwa.de.
The International Art Song Competition Stutttgart, which will be held for the 15th time in Stuttgart in 2026, is one of the largest and most renowned competitions for Lied duos in the world. The competition will be streamed live online and offers all young singers and pianists born after 31 December 1992 a platform to explore this particularly beautiful and challenging art form and present it to a large international audience. In addition to Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf as a constant ‘basis’, the repertoire of the 2026 competition will also focus on American composers as well as on five European female composers of the late 19th/early 20th century. Moreover, to mark the 100th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke's death this year, new Rilke settings have been commissioned from three contemporary international composers.
The 2nd round is open to the public. Admission is free. Registration is requested: info@ihwa.de.
The International Art Song Competition Stutttgart, which will be held for the 15th time in Stuttgart in 2026, is one of the largest and most renowned competitions for Lied duos in the world. The competition will be streamed live online and offers all young singers and pianists born after 31 December 1992 a platform to explore this particularly beautiful and challenging art form and present it to a large international audience. In addition to Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf as a constant ‘basis’, the repertoire of the 2026 competition will also focus on American composers as well as on five European female composers of the late 19th/early 20th century. Moreover, to mark the 100th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke's death this year, new Rilke settings have been commissioned from three contemporary international composers.
The final is open to the public. Admission is free. Registration is requested: info@ihwa.de.
Awardees of the 15th International Art Song Competition
In the popular concert of the awardees, the stage belongs to the prizewinners of the International Art Song Competition 2026:
Here, the winning duos, who are able to convince the jury of their skills, present their personal favourite programme and receive their certificates from jury chair Brigitte Fassbaender. Celebrate with us the best liedduos of this year's competition!
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
The first gallery concert of the season offers a chance to see and hear once again the first-prize winner of the International Art Song Competition Stuttgart 2014! Twelve years ago, the baritone Ludwig Mittelhammer, together with his duo partner Jonathan Ware, won a magnificent first prize and is surely still fondly remembered by the Stuttgart audience. Since the 2019/20 season, the charming Munich-born singer has been a member of the ensemble at the Gärtnerplatztheater in his home town, and in 2025 he made his acclaimed debut at the Vienna State Opera as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. So it is about time that Ludwig Mittelhammer finally returns to Stuttgart with a song programme – this time alongside Brazilian pianist Marcelo Amaral.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
Lieder by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Hugo Wolf
Liedstadt is coming to Marbach! The cross-genre, travelling Lieder festival, founded by Julian Prégardien in 2023, is coming to the Schillerstadt by the Neckar. On Schiller Sunday 2026, short Lieder programmes will be woven into the schedule of the varied cultural programme on the Schillerhöhe. The grand finale of the popular Tag der offenen Tür will be a song programme presented by none other than Christoph Prégardien (father of the festival’s founder) alongside his long-standing song accompanist, Michael Gees. With songs by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Hugo Wolf, the duo will explore the heritage of the Swabian poets Friedrich Schiller, Eduard Mörike and Justinus Kerner.
Stefan Heucke: Dichterleben, Op. 141 (world premiere); book launch of 'Rilke zeichnet' and more
To mark the double anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926) in 2025 and 2026, mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter commissioned a new Rilke song cycle by Stefan Heucke, which is now being premiered – on the 151st anniversary of the poet’s birth. The gallery concert brings together various aspects of Rilke’s reception. The focus – as one would expect in a museum – is on Rilke’s intense relationship with the visual arts, with Rilke being portrayed not only as an enthusiastic art lover, but also through his own paintings, which are almost unknown.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
Songs by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, de Falla and others
The Egyptian soprano Fatma Said is a global star who is at home on the world’s major international stages and concert halls. London, Milan, New York, Berlin and Salzburg are regular stops on her packed schedule. The singer, who is deeply committed to social and socio-political causes, has even performed in front of the Pyramids of Giza. For her IHWA debut, Fatma Said turns her attention to a subject particularly close to her heart – the art song. Ever since her studies in Berlin (under Wolfram Rieger, amongst others), the art song has played an enormously important role in her artistic identity and, for her, serves as a bridge between languages and cultures – a theme that is also reflected in her Stuttgart art song programme.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
1st prize winners of the 15th International Art Song Competition
A surprise programme
The 15th International Art Song Competition took place in Stuttgart from 29 September to 04 October 2026. Part of the first prize is a concert in the Hugo-Wolf-Akademie’s programme. As the winners of this year’s competition had not yet been announced at the time of publication, we can look forward to a concert where, at the moment, neither the performers nor the programme have been decided. Come and be surprised!
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
In April 2026, the artist couple Esther Dierkes and Björn Bürger delighted us with a thoroughly romantic art song recital at the Staatsgalerie. Now another singing couple is performing on the stage of the lecture hall: the baritone Johannes Kammler, a longtime member of the Staatsoper ensemble, is joined for this art song recital by his wife, the wonderful soprano Anna El-Khashem. Thematically, however, things are less harmonious this time compared to last year: in Hugo Wolf’s Italienischem Liederbuch, the two protagonists love and quarrel, experiencing all the highs and lows of emotional passion! The two of them are accompanied by Alan Hamilton.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
Songs by Poulenc, Satie, von der Wense, Auric, Dessau and others
In early December 2026, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart will open its exhibition ‘Everything Surreal?! Photography in the Cosmos of Surrealism’, which places the medium of photography in dialogue with paintings, drawings, sculptures, objects and film clips from the Surrealist era. In the gallery concert, baritone Holger Falk and pianist and composer Steffen Schleiermacher will present the surreal side of the art song – with German and French songs that reveal their own surreal realities.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
Songs by Muriel Herbert, Roger Quilter, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Richard Wagner and others
“So ist die Lieb!...” (Such is love!), wrote Eduard Mörike almost exactly 200 years ago, shrugging his shoulders in resignation at the force of nature and the many guises with which love captivates us humans and never lets us go. A song duo well known in Stuttgart and popular far beyond the region’s borders is dedicated to this phenomenon – love – in all its contradictory, passionate, beautiful and, at times, painful facets: the soprano Sarah Wegener and the pianist Götz Payer. In the concert hall of the HMDK Stuttgart, where Sarah Wegener studied and where Götz Payer has been a professor of art song since 2022, the duo explores the full spectrum of human emotions – from the tentative first glimmer of love to the blazing fire of all-consuming desire.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
The viola is the instrument that comes closest to the human voice. Its range corresponds to that of the human chest voice – which is why the warm sound of the viola and the human voice harmonise so beautifully. It is therefore somewhat surprising that there isn’t much more repertoire for this special pairing, which complements each other so well. Some of the most beautiful works for this combination feature on the programme for this gallery concert. There is much to look forward to, not only because of the unusual combination, but also because of mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert and Andreas Willwohl, principal violist with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, both of whom are appearing at the IHWA for the first time, and pianist Marcelo Amaral.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
Songs by Schumann, Hahn, Elgar, Britten, Holmes and others
Double the mezzo power in one concert! In the final gallery concert of the season, we can look forward to one of the most beautiful mezzo-soprano voices of our time – Dame Sarah Connolly is finally returning to Stuttgart. She has already enchanted Stuttgart audiences on numerous occasions with her velvety mezzo-soprano voice. This time she’s even bringing reinforcements with her: not only will her long-time piano partner Julius Drake be joining her, but she’ll also be accompanied by Beth Taylor, one of the most promising young talents in her field. Together, the two voices combine to create a musical delight that you simply mustn’t miss.
Ticket information: Students and persons with a severe disability card are eligible for reduced-price tickets. Please contact us directly at info@ihwa.de or +49 711 221177. The card must be presented at the entrance.
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