Barbara Hendricks was born in Arkansas, USA and received her musical training and her Bachelor of Music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York where she studied with mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel. Earlier, she had completed her studies at the University of Nebraska receiving the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Chemistry at the age of 20.
She made her American and European operatic debuts in 1974 at the San Francisco Opera and at the Glyndebourne Festival and went on to appear at all major opera houses throughout the world, including the Paris Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden and La Scala. Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro was her debut role in Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg and Munich, as well as the role she sang in the last performances that the late Karl Bцhm conducted of this opera.
Barbara Hendricks has more than 20 roles in her active opera repertoire, 12 of which she has already recorded. They range from Mozart (Pamina in Die Zauberflцte and Ilia in Idomeneo) to French classics (Antonia in Les Contes d‘Hoffman, Micaela in Bizet‘s Carmen, Massenet‘s Manon and Gounod‘s Juliette, Debussy‘s Mйlisande), and the Italian masterpieces (Liщ in Turandot and Gilda in Rigoletto). She sang ‘Liu‘ in the historical premiere performance of Turandot, given in the Forbidden City in Beijing in 1998, conducted by Zubin Mehta and directed by Zhang Yimou. In March 2000 she added Tatiana in Eugene Oneguin at the Nice Opera with Vladimir Chernov. She made her film debut as Mimi in La Bohиme, directed by Luigi Comencini. In 1994 she participated in an international prize-winning film production of The Rake‘s Progress singing Anne Truelove, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. She was a member of the jury at the International Film Festival in Cannes 1999, presided by David Cronenberg.
Since her 1974 New York Town Hall debut, Barbara Hendricks has been acclaimed as one of the leading and most active recitalists of her generation and in addition to her vast repertoire of German Lieder she is also known as a leading interpreter and staunch promoter of French, American and Scandinavian music. The pianists with whom she has performed and recorded include Dmitri Alexeev, Michel Bйroff, Yefim Bronfman, Michel Dalberto, Youri Egorov, Ralf Gothoni, Radu Lupu, Maria Joao Pires, Roland Pцntinen, Staffan Scheja, Andras Schiff and Peter Serkin. Because of her love for chamber music, she regularly participates and also organises chamber music festivals with friends who share her passion. Barbara Hendricks has performed her extensive orchestral repertoire with all of the leading conductors and orchestras of our time. She is one of today‘s best-selling recording artists and has made nearly 80 recordings with conductors such as Barenboim, Bernstein, Davis, Dorati, Giulini, Haitink, Karajan, Maazel, Mehta, Sawallisch and Solti.
She made her jazz debut at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1994 and has since then performed regularly in renowned jazz festivals throughout the world with the Magnus Lindgren Quartet. Barbara Hendricks has toured Japan with von Karajan (1977), Bernstein (1985), with the Vienna State Opera (1986) and the Hamburg Opera (1996). In addition to her busy concert and opera schedule in Europe and in the United States, she alternates every other year with extensive tours to the Far East or Latin America and performs regularly at international music festivals worldwide.