Vita

A native of Berlin, Sarah van der Kemp's musical education is extraordinarily broad: after completing her piano studies in her home city at the Universität der Künste and studying German and musicology at the Technische Universität, she found her artistic home in singing. She studied opera singing at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin with Julia Varady. She is a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Society and has also attended masterclasses with Peter Konwitschny, Thomas Quasthoff and Rudolf Piernay, and in particular with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with whom she worked intensively for many years on works by Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf and the entire song repertoire of Gustav Mahler.
Throughout the course of her permanent engagements at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Staatstheater Schwerin she developed a broad repertoire. She performed roles such as Judith (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle), the composer (Ariadne on Naxos), Preziosilla (Forza del destino), Rosina (Barbiere di Siviglia), Hänsel (Hänsel and Gretel), Sesto (Cesare), Mercédès and Carmen (Carmen), Fox (The Cunning Little Vixen), Ross White (Valkyrie), the 2nd Lady (The Magic Flute), Flora (La Traviata), Infermiera (Suor Angelica), and Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi). 
Since then, Sarah van der Kemp has performed at home and abroad as a freelance opera and concert singer. Highlights include engagements in the dramatic repertoire as Sieglinde (Valkyrie) and Venus (Tannhäuser) with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in Hong Kong, at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as Eboli (Don Carlo) and Laura (La Gioconda), at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden she sang the Kunstgewerblerin (Lulu) under the direction of Michael Gielen.
She sang the alto role in Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, and the role of Hänsel under the direction of Sebastian Weigle. She performed Berlioz' Nuits d'été with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra in France and Germany and Mahler's Songs of a Traveling Journeyman and Carmen with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. Van der Kemp appeared in Sasha Waltz's Impromptus at the Avignon Festival and at the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara.
In the field of oratorio, she sang the alto parts in Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem in the Cathédrale des Invalides in Paris and in Camille Saint-Saëns Oratorio de Noël with the Dresdner Kreuzchor and took part in the world premiere of Ralf Hoyer's Luther oratorio Wachet recht auff.
Other engagements have taken her to the Festival de Radio France in Montpellier, Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse, Philarmonie Baden-Baden, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Brandenburger Symphoniker, and Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha among others.
She collaborated with conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Sebastian Weigle, Yves Abel, Michael Gielen, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Stefano Ranzani, Philippe Auguin, and Matthias Foremny and others.

In the concert area she has a particular passion for the interpretation of the orchestral Lied. Her repertoire includes songs by Mahler (Songs of a Traveling Journeyman, Rückert-Lieder; songs from The Boy's magic horn, and songs on The Death of Children, The Song of the Earth, 3ed Symphony), Wagner (Wesendonck-Lieder), Berlioz (Nuits d’été), de Falla (Siete canciones populares españolas), as well more unknown songs, such as a selection of Duparc songs, Alban Berg’s concert aria The Wine or the first recording of the Love Song by Panufnik (Konzerthausorchester Berlin).

In addition to the classical repertoire, the area of contemporary music has emerged as a further pillar of her musical work - she has worked as a singer, pianist and actress in numerous productions of New Music Theatre in Switzerland, Germany, Peru and Bolivia and has collaborated with composers such as George Aperghis, Manos Tsangaris, Hans Wüthrich and Daniel Ott.

Her own projects and concepts broaden and deepen the singer's spectrum of expression - she has developed festivals, concert series and individual events in various dimensions and constellations. Recent projects in this field include Klári-Suite, a cyclical concert evening for voice, piano and video art, The Song of the Earth - Dialog of the Diverse , a juxtaposition of Mahler's symphonic song cycle with commissioned works for solo instruments by Peter Eötvös, Toshio Hosokawa and Nathan Currier, as well as programmes with chamber music arrangements of Brahms, Liszt and Wagner songs.