Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: Agnus DeiCapella Istropolitana, Faridah Schafer-Subrata, Freiderike Wagner, Friederike Wagner, Hartmut Elbert, Jan Rozehnal, Markus Schäfer & Martina Koppelstetter
Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243: I. MagnificatSiri Karoline Thornhill, Mira Graczyk, Sophia Körber, Anna Karmasin, Theresa Holzhauser, Florence Losseau, Markus Schäfer, Robert Sellier, Andreas Mattersberger, Niklas Mallmann, Concerto de Bassus & Franz Hauk
Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: Kyrie EleisonCapella Istropolitana, Faridah Schafer-Subrata, Freiderike Wagner, Friederike Wagner, Hartmut Elbert, Jan Rozehnal, Markus Schäfer & Martina Koppelstetter
Mass in C Major, Op. 86: I. KyrieAudrey Michael, Gulbenkian Chorus of Lisbon, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lilia Bizimeche-Eisinger, Markus Schäfer, Michel Brodard & Michel Corboz
Le due duchesse, Act I: PerdonateYoung-Jun Ahn, Concerto de Bassus, Franz Hauk, Jaegyeong Jo, Markus Schäfer, Jörn Lindemann, Harald Thum, Tina Marie Herbert, Samuel Hasselhorn, Bayerische Staatsopernchor & Simon Mayr Chorus
ALBUMVioleta Dinescu: TrajektorieGudula Rosa, Marko Kassl, Irene Kurka & Markus Schäfer
ALBUMMayr: Alfredo il grande (Original 1819 Milan Version)Marie-Luise Dressen, Markus Schäfer, Daniel Ochoa, Anna Feith, Sophia Körber, Phillipp Polhardt, Concerto de Bassus & Franz Hauk
ALBUMHommage à Dinu LipattiMarkus Schäfer & Mihai Ungureanu
ALBUMSchubert: The Small Song CyclesMarkus Schäfer & Zvi Meniker
ALBUMVesque von Püttlingen: Die HeimkehrMarkus Schäfer & Christian De Bruyn
ALBUMMayr: Le due duchesseMarkus Schäfer, Tina Marie Herbert, Samuel Hasselhorn, Andreas Mattersberger, Concerto de Bassus & Franz Hauk
ALBUMSchubert: SchwanengesängeMarkus Schäfer, Tobias Koch & Stephan Katte
ALBUMMayr: I CherusciFranz Hauk, Concerto de Bassus, Markus Schäfer, Yvonne Prentki, Andreas Mattersberger, Andrea Lauren Brown, Uwe Gottswinter & Katharina Konradi
Lyric tenor Markus Schäfer is especially identified with Baroque music but also sings lieder and 19th century vocal repertory as far forward in time as Mahler. He is also a noted educator.
Schäfer was born on June 13, 1961, in Andernach in western Germany, and grew up in nearby Bad Ems. His father was a church musician. Schäfer at first aimed toward a church career himself, studying that field in the cities of Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf, but voice lessons with Armand McLane steered him toward singing, as did a stint at the International Opera Studio in Zürich, Switzerland. Schäfer sang in opera productions there and then joined the cast of the Zürich Opera. He moved on to the Hamburg Staatsoper and then the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. He also built a career as a lieder singer, often appearing at summer festivals, but also as far afield as Lincoln Center in New York and Wigmore Hall in London. As Schäfer's career developed, he gravitated toward early music. He sang both concert works and opera with the early music group La Petite Band under director Sigiswald Kuijken, and he appeared in 2014 in a 300th-anniversary performance of C.P.E. Bach's oratorio Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu with the orchestra Das kleine Konzert and the Rheinische Kantorei choir. He has often sung solos with the Windsbacher Knabenchor boychoir and is a member of the male vocal quartet Liedertafel.
Schäfer has been heard as a soloist on several acclaimed recordings, including conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt's Grammy Award-winning 1994 reading of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244. As a solo artist, he has a varied catalog of recordings on such labels as Naxos, Wergo, and Avi-Music, where he recorded an album of Schubert songs called Schwanengesänge in 2019. In 2020, he appeared on a Naxos recording of Johann Simon Mayr's rare opera Le due duchesse. Schäfer is a professor of voice at the Musikhochschule Hannover. ~ James Manheim