Philipp J. Kaven

Philipp J. Kaven was born in Berlin in 1984. He began his musical education by playing the violin. He gave his first vocal solo performances as a boy soprano in the Rundfunk-Kinderchor Berlin. As a 15-year-old, he joined the Berliner Sing-Akademie and, at the same time, started studying singing under Jochen Voigt. In 2005, he took up studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, in the class of Christiane Bach-Röhr and, from 2010 onwards, in the master class of Prof. Olaf Bär and Prof. Matthias Henneberg. He has also taken part in masterclasses given by Prof. Peter Schreier, Franz Grundheber, Prof. Britta Schwarz, Margret Trappe-Wiehl, Jorma Hynninen, Klaus Häger or Edith Wiens.

He gained experience as a baritone by singing in ensembles such as the Bachakademie Stuttgart, Gächinger Kantorei and Dresdener Kammerchor; since 2017 he has worked with the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk radio choir and the NDR Vocalensemble.

 

Active on the concert stage, Philipp Kaven performs with numerous orchestras and ensembles: lautten compagney Berlin, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Staatskapelle Dresden, Dresdener Philharmoniker, Bach-Kollegium Stuttgart, Berliner Konzerthausorchester and Ensemble Wunderkammer. These engagements provide an opportunity to work with such eminent conductors as Roger Norrington, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Philippe Herreweghe, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Achim Zimmermann and Helmuth Rilling.

 

Philipp Kaven has been a member of the Collegium Vocale Gent ensemble since March 2011. In November 2021, he made his debut in Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Bachakademie in Krasnoyarsk, where he also conducted his first masterclass for local students. In May 2013, the artist became the winner of the Podium junger Gesangssolisten competition.

 

At concerts around the world, Philipp Kaven has performed Bach’s Passions, his Christmas Oratorio and numerous cantatas, Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Fauré’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Mass in C major, Händel’s oratorios Messiah and Israel in Egypt, Monteverdi’s Vespers, Schubert’s masses, but also contemporary music, including premieres of new works.

 

In 2014, as part of the Thüringer Bachwochen, he returned to collaboration with Helmuth Rilling and to works by Bach and Saint-Saëns (2015); he also performed Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Dvořák’s cantata The Spectre’s Bride (2016) with the Berliner Sing-Akademie and Konzerthausorchester Berlin.

 

Together with Almut Kaven, the artist regularly organises evenings of songs, including works with Heinrich Heine’s poetry arranged by various composers in the Cosel-Palais in Dresden and at Vetschau Castle in 2017.

 

In the 2018/2019 season, he took part as a solo performer in Collegium Vocale Gent’s musical-theatre production De Blinden.

 

In March 2019, he performed Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Berlin ensembles: Sing-Akademie and Ensemble Wunderkammer under the direction of Achim Zimmermann at the Konzerthaus Berlin.

 

During the pandemic, Philipp Kaven took part in the recording of an album of songs by Nicolas Gombert.

 

While developing constantly his solo career, the artist has also worked as a pedagogue for many years.

 

In spring 2024, during the European tour of Collegium Vocale Gent, he sang the solo part in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, in which he also made his debut at Milan‘s La Scala at the time.

 

April of the same year brought a performance of Haydn’s The Seasons at the Berlin Konzerthaus. He returned to this concert hall in December to sing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.