Pentatone has announced its latest signing as the German soprano Anna Lucia Richter. She has already been well received in Gramophone’s pages; of an earlier recording of music by Brahms, Britten and Schumann, released by Challenge Classics in 2016, critic Richard Fairman wrote that her 'beguiling, light soprano floats limpidly through the air, a thing of evanescent beauty’.

The first album under the new partnership will be be ‘Heimweh,’ a programme of Schubert lieder, featuring the pianist Gerold Huber. Recordings were made earlier this year, and are scheduled for release in February 2019. The pair will present the repertoire for the first time in January, at the Philharmonie Luxembourg and the Konzerthaus Dortmund.

‘It is such an honour and pleasure to be included in this exquisite musician family of Pentatone, and I am very happy to work together with Renaud Loranger, who has an extraordinary knowledge and passion for the music I love most,’ says Richter. 

Renaud Loranger, Vice President Artists and Repertoire at Pentatone, said: ‘I have been following Anna Lucia’s career with growing interest ever since my earliest days in the industry, and it is an understatement to say that I am excited to be working with her now.’

Among her career achievements so far was being named as a recipient of the Boletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2016 – always a good indication of an artist to follow.

Edward Christian-Hare