Judith Simonis saw her fortunes change overnight. In April 2004 the young alto sung as a stand-in in Schubert’s E flat major Mass under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. A few days later she was invited to join the Rundfunchor Berlin as a regular member.
Simonis was born in Thuringia in 1976. She began to play the piano at the age of six and entered the boarding-school of the Franz Liszt College of Music in Weimar at the age of 12. There she laid the foundations for her singing career. After studying voice pedagogy at Bad Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg, she obtained her diploma as an opera singer and recitalist at the Hanns Eisler College of Music in Berlin. She went on to win a scholarship of the Richard-Wagner-Verband Berlin and an award at the International Singing Competition of the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg. As a recitalist she has appeared in Freiburg, Basel, Stuttgart, Strasbourg and Berlin. Guest engagements have taken her to the opera houses in Villingen and Magdeburg. She has also sung in the Ludwigsburg Festival chorus. Apart from her choral engagements Simonos will continue to appear as a soloist.
