Sarah Tysman
French pianist Sarah Tysman holds a professorship at the Universität der Künste Berlin since 2016. Alongside, she continues to be in demand as a soloist, a Lied accompanist, a chamber music partner and as a musical assistant and adviser for various orchestras and cultural institutions.
Her passion for working with singers led her to engagements at the Komische Oper Berlin and Opernhaus Zürich. As vocal coach and musical assistant, Sarah Tysman has been a guest at Staatsoper Berlin, Theater an der Wien, Opéra national de Paris, Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and during the Bayreuther Festspiele. She is highly demanded for her broad and unique experience and is regularly invited to work with conductors such as Bertrand de Billy, Philippe Jordan, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Kirill Petrenko, Franz Welser-Möst, and with many of the greatest singers of our time.
In the years 2012–2016, she was the music director for all summer opera productions at the Salzburger Festspiele, and has returned there regularly for individual productions since then. From 2020 to 2022, she held an analogous position at the Wiener Staatsoper.
She has been nurturing a long musical partnership with conductor Kirill Petrenko with whom she appeared as a soloist (Piano Concertos by Edvard Grieg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, piano solo parts in Igor Stravinsky’a Petrushka and Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus) as well as a musical assistant for the lyrical repertoire of the Philharmonie Berlin, among others. Their latest collaborative projects included a first USA tour with Kirill Petrenko (2022) and musical direction for the production of Richard Strauss’ opera Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Easter Festival Baden-Baden in 2023.
Sarah Tysman studied in her native Paris at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse, and later at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg in piano classes of Henri Barda and Grigory Gruzman, and chamber music with Pierre-Laurent Aimard before specialising in the Lied repertoire with Anne Grappotte and Hartmut Höll at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, graduating in those three fields.
The pianist has performed at Milan’s La Scala, London’s Wigmore Hall, Wiener Staatsoper, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Philharmonie Berlin, Tonhalle Zürich and at the Verbier Festival. Her musical partners have included Maria Bengtsson, Angelika Kirchschlager, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Anna Prohaska, Rolando Villazón, Michael Volle and Piotr Beczała.
Her first CD of Richard Strauss Lieder with soprano Maria Bengtsson on the Dabringhaus und Grimm label was highly acclaimed.
[2025]