Birita Poulsen
The soprano Birita Poulsen comes from the Faroe Islands, and is an alumni of the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, where she studied with Christine Schäfer.
Birita was the 2021 Faroese Young Artist of the Year, and has sung with conductors including Robin Ticciati, Christopher Eschenbach and Wolfgang Katschner.
Photo: Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir
This January, Birita made her debut at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin as part of their annual Schubert Week where she sang a song recital with the renowned pianist Susan Manoff. Last year, Birita was a participant of Thomas Hampson’s Heidelberger Frühling Lied Akademie and performed a solo concert with Deutsche Händel Solisten at the Händel-Festspiele in Karlsruhe. At the Händel-Festspiele in Halle 2022, she sang Dalinda in Handel’s Ariodante with the Lautten Compagney Berlin to great acclaim. Other recent solo highlights include the title role in Alban Berg´s Lulu with the Echo Ensemble, Berlin, and the role of Lucia in Benjamin Britten´s The Rape of Lucretia, under the baton of Robin Ticciati with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester.
In masterclasses, Birita has worked with artists including Brigitte Fassbaender, Graham Johnson, Susan Manoff, Hartmut Höll and Kevin Murphy, and in competitions, she was an award winner at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg Competition, Stella Polaris and Giulio Perotti International song competition.
Birita is equally comfortable in concert repertoire as in opera. In oratorio, she has sung under conductors such as Justin Doyle, with whom she sang the solo in Poulenc´s Gloria last November with the RIAS Kammerchor and has performed Bach Cantatas with Raphael Alpermann of the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, and in the Thomaskirche Leipzig with Johannes Lang. Her performances of song have been broadcast on RBB-Kulturradio, and she has performed to the Queen of Denmark on multiple occasions.
Birita is passionate about bringing classical music to the Faroe Islands, and sang in the country’s first ever performance of a Mozart Opera. She has also performed many song recitals there, including a specially commissioned song cycle by Faroese composer, Sunleif Rasmussen and has toured the islands with her Berlin-based Trio.
