Marcia Lemke-Kern, soprano, composer, ensemble director

The soprano Marcia Lemke-Kern studied at City University London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. She then completed postgraduate studies at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama and the EULEC Lüneburg. She completed her training with courses at the Centre de la musique médiévale de Paris. She took singing lessons with Sylvie Sullé (Paris), Julia Barthe (Hamburg) and Sabrina Baldi (Rome), among others. Since then, Marcia has performed with various ensembles, mainly for early music with historical performance practice as well as contemporary music, including the Sinfonietta Vivazza, the Rungholt Ensemble, the Lux Nova Duo, Musica Delecta, Radar Ensemble, Decoder, Ensemble Effusions, Non-Piano Ensemble, and her own ensemble for music of the Middle Ages, Trobar e Cantar. 

Marcia has a passion for rediscovering forgotten music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. She regularly transcribes, edits and rearranges these for Trobar e Cantar.At the other end of the musical spectrum, she gives premieres and first performances of contemporary music. Composers such as Michael Maierhof, Benjamin Scheuer, Sascha Lino Lemke, Simon Steen-Andersen, René Mense, Christian Wolff, Ruth Wiesenfeld, Manfred Stahnke, Daniel Moreira, Edyta Müller, Steven Tanoto, Neele Hülcker, Benjamin Helmer, Peter Michael Hamel, Catalina Rueda, Georg Hajdu, Peter Köszeghy and Maria Alejandra Castro have dedicated pieces to her and her ensembles. Her speaking voice (English / German) has also been used for experimental film projects and radio plays. 

Contemporary Opera / Music Theatre: In 2007 Marcia Lemke-Kern and her husband Sascha Lino Lemke won 1st prize in the European Promoters of New Music competition at the Gaudeamus Music Week, Amsterdam for the music theatre piece “Un4Scene”. In 2013 Dirk Schattner created the music theatre “Sein Engel” to Richard Wagner’s ‘Wesendonck Lieder’ for Marcia. This was followed by the opera “Himmelsmüll” by Sascha Lino Lemke (premiere 2015), “Der Schmutz” by Ernst Bechert (premiere 2016/7) Michael Maierhof’s “Sodom und Gomorrah” (premiere 2020), Benjamin Helmer’s “Der Verlorene Vater” (premiere 2021) and Michael Maierhof’s “The Beautician” (premiere 2022).

Marcia has been invited to give seminars on New Music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, the Institute of Music at the University of Osnabrück and the Chartered Institute of Linguists, London, among others. Articles on music and language have appeared in The Linguist. She is part of the artistic team  of the Hamburg concert series “Erhörtes-Unerhörtes” and runs the “Subtle Arts Festival” (Lübeck/ Hamburg) together with the organist Kerstin Petersen.