Ewa Podleś Born 1952 Contralto With her outstandingly rich and dark lower register, Ewa Podleś became best known for her performances of Baroque opera but, also blessed with a rare agility across a huge range, excelled in coloratura roles by the likes of Rossini and Donizetti too. She herself once acknowledged in an interview that she had ‘a very rare voice’. That voice took the Polish contralto from studies at the Warsaw Academy of Music to victory in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1977, a moment that launched her career in earnest. Over the next four decades, her vocal power and versatility saw her acclaimed in repertoire ranging from Handel to Shostakovich, both on the world’s great stages and in a large number of recordings that included the Te Deum by her compatriot Penderecki, conducted by the composer himself. She retired from singing in 2017.
Peter Schickele Born 1935 Composer and entertainer As a performer and composer, Peter Schickele won no fewer than five Grammy awards, four in the Best Comedy Album category and one for Best Classical Crossover Album. Though his large number of compositions included significant pieces for orchestra, choral and chamber ensembles, it was through his alter ego P.D.Q.Bach that Schickele enjoyed his greatest acclaim. Invented as a joke in 1954, the ‘last and oddest’ of JS Bach’s children would see the Iowa-born, Juilliard School-educated Schickele appear live on stage and on ai
