Since her European stage debut in the year 2000, South Korean soprano Sunhae Im – who studied at the Seoul National University under the guidance of Lokyung Pak and at the University of Karlsruhe under Roland Hermann – has proven her artistic versatility in a multitude of international productions. She has been a guest at the Berliner Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Oper Frankfurt, Staatsoper Hamburg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra National de Paris (Euridice in Gluck’s
Orfeo under Thomas Hengelbrock), Staatstheater Stuttgart (Ilia in
Idomeneo, Susanna in
Le Nozze Di Figaro, and Constance in Poulenc’s
Dialogues Des Carmélites under Manfred Honeck), Korean National Opera (Adina in Donizetti’s
L’elisir D’amore and Ilia under Myung-Whun Chung), Palace of Arts (Zerlina in
Don Giovanni under Iván Fischer), and Theater an der Wien (
La Finta Giardiniera and
L’orfeo).
Im has been invited to renowned festivals such as the Edinburgh International Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival New York, Salzburg Festival and Haydn International Festival, and has worked with the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, the orchestra de chamber de Paris and the Munich Philharmonic. She is a regular guest at the Beaune Festival and appeared at the Verbier Festival as well as at the Festwochen für Alte Musik Innsbruck.
She has worked with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Manfred Honeck, William Christie, Fabio Biondi, Thomas Hengelbrock, Herbert Blomstedt, Frans Brüggen, Giovanni Antonini, Iván Fischer, Kent Nagano, Riccardo Chailly, Lothar Zagrosek, Sylvain Cambreling, Ton Koopman, Marek Janowski, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Matthew Halls and René Jacobs.
She has also close ties to the ensembles of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin AKAMUS, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, B`Rock Orchestra Gent and Ensemble Matheus.
Her repertoire includes works by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Gluck, Rameau, Charpentier, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler and Mendelssohn.
Recent successes included Bach’s
Weihnachtsoratorium with the B’Rock Orchestra, Haydn’s
Creation in Paris (new Philharmonic) and Lyon, Brahms’
Ein Deutsches Requiem in St. Gallen,
St. John’s Passion on tour with AKAMUS and RIAS Kammerchor, and
Don Giovanni(concert version) on tour in Asia with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and René Jacobs.
The 2015-2016 season will see Im quite regularly in Bachs’s St. John’s and St. Matthew’s Passion. She will sing both oratorios at the MiTo Festival in Milan and Turin; and St. John’s Passion with the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as with the Ensemble Musica Saeculorum at the Easter festival of Aix-en-Provence and in Essen. Further highlights will be Pergolsesi’s
Stabat Mater and
Septem Verba with the Akademie für Alte Musik on tour, Schmidt’s
Das Buch Mit Sieben Siegeln with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein and Mozart’s Requiem with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin under the baton of Manfred Honeck.
In February 2016, Im returned to the Opera de la Monnaie in Brussels for a new production of Florian Leopold Gassmann’s
L’opera Seriawith the Baroque Orchestra B’Rock and René Jacobs.
Her first solo CD with works by Rameau, Clérambault, Pergolesi and Scarlatti was released for harmonia mundi (Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin) in March 2015.
Many of her recordings have been internationally awarded, e.g. Fauré Requiem (Echo Klassik 2012), Mahler`s 4th Symphony (ICMA 2012), Handel`s
Agrippina (
BBC Music Magazine Award 2012), several Mozart recordings (
Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, La Clemenza Di Tito), Haydn`s
Die Schöpfung, or Bach`s H-MOLL MESSE.
www.sunhaeim.com
