Remembrance Marcel Brunner & Doriana Tchakarova

Marcel Brunner
comes from Bad Mergentheim in the south of Germany.

The young bass-baritone studied singing with Snezana Stamenkovic and Christiane Libor at the Conservatories in Mannheim and Karlsruhe.

Masterclasses with Julia Varady, Michelle Breedt, Markus Eiche, Burkhard Kehring, Rudolf Piernay and Hartmut Höll completed his training.

Already during his studies, Marcel Brunner made his debut at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 2013 and was engaged there as a guest in various productions.

He made his debut at the Berlin Philharmonic's Easter Festival in Baden-Baden in March 2018 as Klingsor in a children's version of Wagner's Parsifal and also made a guest appearance with this production in the Great Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic.

From 2018 to 2020 Marcel Brunner was a member of the opera studio of the Nationaltheater Mannheim.

His roles included Masetto in Don Giovanni, Hermann Ortel in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Leander in Die Liebe zu drei Orangen, Sagrestano in Tosca, Hobson in Peter Grimes and Polizeikommissar in Der Rosenkavalier.

Since the beginning of the 2020/2021 season, Marcel Brunner has been part of the permanent ensemble of the Nationaltheater Mannheim. There he can be seen in new productions as Papageno in The Magic Flute, Bonzo in Madama Butterfly, Stimme in Jakob Lenz and as the Hauptmann in Simplicius Simplicissimus, among others.

In the 2021/2022 season, guest contracts will take him to the Stadttheater Klagenfurt as Stimme in Jakob Lenz, to the Leipzig Opera as the Mesner in Tosca and to the Theater Bonn as Un Frate in Don Carlo.

Marcel Brunner is a sought-after soloist in concert and oratorio and performs with orchestras such as the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, the Württembergische Kammerorchester Heilbronn, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Kurpfälzische Kammerorchester Mannheim and the Beethoven Academy Orchestra Krakow.

He has worked with renowned conductors such as Lukasz Borowicz, Christoph Gedschold, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, Tung-Chieh Chang, Johannes Kalitzke, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Case Scaglione, Ola Rudner and Alexander Soddy.

Marcel Brunner has also appeared as soloist in various radio productions for SWR and Deutschlandfunk.

Doriana Tchakarova
is an internationally successful pianist, a prizewinner of numerous competitions, and her CD recordings have been awarded significant prizes. As a song pianist and chamber musician, she has performed successfully on major concert stages in Berlin, Vienna, Ljubljana, Frankfurt, Oxford, Zurich, Stuttgart, Hanover, Varna, Freiburg, Lugano, and Bayreuth, as well as at significant festivals and concert series such as the Heidelberger Frühling, the Frankfurt Opera, the Staatsoper Berlin, the Oxford Lied Festival, the Dresden Music Festival, the Musikverein Vienna, the Lied Festival Sindelfingen, the Musikfest Bremen, the Mozart Festival Würzburg, the Lausitz Festival, and the Schubertiada Barcelona. Interviews, live broadcasts and live recordings took place at many important broadcasts in Germany, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovenia, France.

Among her many song partners are Äneas Humm, Samuel Hasselhorn, Thilo Dahlmann, Eva Zalenga, Sibylla Rubens, Julian Prégardien, Johannes Held, Juliane Banse, Konstantin Krimmel, Ulrike Sonntag, Krešimir Stražanac, Marie Seidler, Nathalie Karl, Matthias Klink, Judith and Felicitas Erb, Manuel Walser, Carolina López Moreno, Nils Wanderer, Mirella Hagen, Sarah Wegener, Anna-Lena Elbert, Marcel Brunner, Magnus Dietrich, Robin Neck, and the SWR Vocal Ensemble.

In 2019, a CD featuring baritone Konstantin Krimmel was released by the renowned label ALPHA CLASSICS, comprising ballads by Schubert, Loewe, Schumann, and Jensen. This recording was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) and the Opus Klassik, and received the Diapason découverte award. Her CDs with sopranos Judith Erb and Felicitas Erb featuring songs and duets by Hugo Kaun (world premiere recordings) and Louis Spohr at ARS PRODUCTION, as well as her recording of duets by Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel, received overwhelming acclaim across Europe. The latter was nominated for the Echo Klassik in 2017.

In March 2022, a CD featuring all Brahms duets with the Erb sisters and tenor Magnus Dietrich was released by MDG-Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm, which was nominated for the Opus Klassik in three categories in 2023.

In early 2024, two more highly praised artsong CDs have been released by HÄNSSLER CLASSIC: “In Relations” with soprano Eva Zalenga and “Made in Europe” with tenor Robin Neck. The latter was nominated for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

In spring 2025, four more song CDs will be released: with Eva Zalenga at GENUIN, with Krešimir Stražanac and Marcel Brunner at HÄNSSLER CLASSIC, and with Äneas Humm at RONDEAU PRODUCTION.

Doriana Tchakarova was born in Varna, Bulgaria. She completed her Bachelor's and Master's studies in piano under Prof. Fernande Kaeser and Prof. Friedemann Rieger at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts and studied in the song class of Prof. Konrad Richter. In April 1993, she won the second prize at the international piano competition "Dimitar Nenov" in Rasgrad/Bulgaria. In the same year, she performed the second piano concerto by Sergei Rachmaninoff with the Varna Philharmonic. In July 2001, she, along with cellist Krassimira Krasteva, was a prizewinner in the chamber music category at the 15th International Competition "Franz Schubert" in Italy. In 2004, she, along with soprano Judith Erb, won the second prize at the Schubert Competition of the "Concorso Internazionale di Interpretazione Musicale Citta di Racconigi" in Italy. Together with baritone Konstantin Krimmel, Doriana Tchakarova won the 1st prize in the Lied duo category at the Berlin “Rising Stars Grand Prix International Music Competition” in May 2018. Until 2020, she formed a successful Lied duo with him and accompanied him in all his competition successes and song recitals at home and abroad.

She is a lecturer at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts and the artistic director of the PoeMus Art Song Festivals.

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