Andreas Scholl (born 10 November 1967) is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range, specialising in Baroque music.

Just four years later, Scholl was offered a place at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, an institution that normally accepts only post-graduate students, based on the strength and quality of his voice.

He has worked with most contemporary Baroque specialists, including William Christie and Philippe Herreweghe, and is himself a songwriter and composer of ballet and theatre music, with his own professional sound studio.

That same year he was one of 20,000 choristers from all over the world gathered in Rome for a festival, and was chosen to sing solo at Mass on 4 January 1981, where he met Pope John Paul II.

Scholl lists his musical heroes as Howard Jones, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), New Order and the Pet Shop Boys.

[3] Scholl then sang for the tenor/countertenor Herbert Klein, who advised him that there were only two places he should study: in London or at the early music conservatoire in Basel, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

[6] Violinist Chiara Banchini and soprano Emma Kirkby were major influences, as Scholl began to specialise in the music of the Baroque.

Andreas Scholl has been teaching interpretation in the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, succeeding his own teacher, Richard Levitt, and is in much demand for master classes.

They include his debut at Glyndebourne in 1998, performing the part of Bertarido in Handel's Rodelinda opposite Anna Caterina Antonacci in the title role, repeated in 1999 and 2002.

[8] At the Bachfest Leipzig 2003, he sang in the Mass in B minor, which traditionally closes the festival, with Letizia Scherrer, Mark Padmore and Sebastian Noack, choir and orchestra of the Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Herreweghe.

In 2007 he performed the title role of Saul again, at Eberbach Abbey with Trine Wilsberg Lund (Merab), Hannah Morrison (Michal), Andreas Karasiak (Jonathan) and the Schiersteiner Kantorei, conducted by Martin Lutz.

[8] In 2008 Andreas Scholl made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, singing Handel's Messiah in Avery Fisher Hall, conducted by Ton Koopman.

[11] In 2011 Scholl made his debut at the RMF in three events, an interview, a trip to three churches with different concert programs, and an opera recital with his sister Elisabeth at Eberbach Abbey.

In the Christophoruskirche of Wiesbaden-Schierstein he appeared with his wife Tamar Halperin[12] on harpsichord, in Hallgarten with members of the Accademia Bizantina, in the romanesque Basilika St. Aegidius of Mittelheim with the vocal trio White Raven.

The composer Marco Rosano has created a new Stabat Mater for Andreas Scholl; he sang the first complete performance of this work on 22 February 2008 at the City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney, accompanied by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra under Paul Dyer.

Alongside Scholl was fellow Baroque countertenor, Roland Kunz, who specialises in setting Elizabethan English poems to his own electronic music.

The recording of Bach's St John Passion conducted by Philippe Herreweghe on which Andreas Scholl sings was nominated for a Cannes Classical Award in 2003.

His 2001 album of folk songs, Wayfaring Stranger, was a personal project, well received by the CD-buying public but not universally acclaimed by his fellow musicians, some of whom regarded it as an inappropriate departure from his more classical work.

[17] This includes the 2010 album Wolkenstein - Songs of Myself, which Gramophone magazine characterized as "[m]agnificent music magically presented by one of the great singers of our time.