Reinet Behncke - Soprano: "There's an academic as well as a musical quality to Baroque music."
The South African-Argentine soprano Reinet Behncke studied voice and vocal pedagogy in the United States at the University of Colorado at Boulder before moving to Vienna. She graduated from the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien, where she received her Master of Arts in Lied and Oratorio, studying with KS Birgid Steinberger, KS Angelika Kirchschlager, and Carolyn Hague, as well as studying voice with Michele Friedman, and early and Baroque music with Nicholas Parle and Reinhard Führer. During her studies, she also participated in masterclasses with Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, and Susan Manoff.
Her main artistic focus has been the performance and interpretation of Lieder, art song, and concert works. Along with her Lied duo partner Anna An, pianist, she has performed throughout Europe, most notably in the concert series "Musik des Holocaust", featuring works composed in Theresienstadt. Her performance of Lieder has further led to performances throughout the world, including at the Grand Théâtre de Calais, the Colorado MahlerFest, and at the Musikfest Stuttgart with Hilko Dumno.
An avid interpreter of the works of J.S. Bach, whose music is her greatest artistic passion, she performed "Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal", BWV 146, under the direction of Helmuth Rilling at the Musikfest Stuttgart. She was additionally a young artist at the Internationale Bach Akademie Stuttgart in 2017, where she studied the interpretation and performance of Bach's music with Dorothee Mields, Peter Harvey, and Jos van Veldhoven. Her master’s thesis at MUK was on the subject of the musical analysis and interpretation of Bach’s solo soprano cantatas. Her church and oratorio repertoire additionally includes Bach’s Magnificat and numerous cantatas, Vesperae solennes de confessore, Exsultate Jubilate, Requiem, and Krönungsmesse by Mozart, Die Tageszeiten by Telemann, Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz by Schütz, and Szűz Mária Mise by László Dobszay in its Austrian premiere.
Reinet is a founding member and the soprano soloist of the Baroque group, Ensemble Quattro Cieli. Together with her colleagues, she has performed at the Vienna Bach Woche, the BachZeit Festival at Kantorei Mondsee, and at the Altes Rathaus in Vienna. The ensemble performs both rare and well known Baroque works.
Operatic roles include Josephine (HMS Pinafore) with Loveland Opera Theatre, Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) with New York Lyric Opera, as well as Brigitta (Iolanta) with New Opera NYC, and the Brautjungfer (Der Freischütz) with Utopia Opera. Her other operatic credits include Mozart’s Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) and Prima Novizia (Suor Angelica), among others.
Reinet was a winner of the ORF's prestigious Fidelio-Wettbewerb in both 2016 and 2017, and was additionally a semi-finalist of the Heinrich Strecker Crossover Competition of Bühne Baden, as well as a semi-finalist of the Internationaler Gesangswettbewerb CantateBach, both in 2019.