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This recital brings together two of the richest cycles in the German Lied tradition: Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe Op.48 and Johannes Brahms’s Neun Lieder und Gesänge Op.32. Both works explore the intimate landscape of love and longing, though in strikingly different voices.
Schumann composed Dichterliebe (“A Poet’s Love”) in 1840, his celebrated Liederjahr, the year he married Clara Wieck. Setting poems from Heinrich Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo, the cycle traces the emotional arc of love’s exaltation and disillusionment. Schumann gives Heine’s bitter-sweet verses a uniquely psychological depth: the songs are brief, often fragmentary, yet each distils an entire world of feeling. The piano writing is inseparable from the poetry, often carrying the truest voice of the cycle in its preludes, interludes, and epilogues. The result is a work of haunting intimacy, oscillating between tender rapture, biting irony, and quiet resignation. Brahms’s Neun Lieder und Gesänge Op.32 (1864) also explores themes of love, but with a very different sensibility. Drawing on poetry by August von Platen and Georg Friedrich Daumer, Brahms creates a sequence of songs that meditate on yearning, separation, and the tension between passion and renunciation. While not a continuous narrative cycle in the Schumannian sense, the set gains coherence from Brahms’s deep engagement with the texts’ inner conflicts. His music often resists easy emotional release, balancing intensity with restraint, and finding beauty in ambiguity. The piano part, characteristically for Brahms, is rich and symphonic in texture, offering both support and independent commentary. Presented together, Dichterliebe and Op.32 illuminate two contrasting Romantic perspectives: Schumann’s mercurial, dream-like lyricism and Brahms’s introspective, often autumnal strength. At the heart of both lies the Lied’s unique capacity to fuse poetry and music into an art of profound personal expression — music of the heart, yet also music that listens closely to the cadences of the human soul. |
ProgrammeRobert Schumann
Dichterliebe Op.48 Johannes Brahms Neun Lieder und Gesänge Op.32 The Duo Schad-HejaziIn 2022, Jakob Schad and Parvis Hejazi founded the 'Duo Schad-Hejazi', specialising in Romantic, Expressionist and Modern song.
The duo was quickly met with international acclaim and has so far performed across Germany, Italy and the UK. |
Jakob Schad |
Photo by Alexey Testov
With his warm, expressive baritone and a versatility that spans opera, concert, and art song, Jakob Schad (b. 2000) captivates both audiences and critics alike. His interpretations combine profound musical expression with compelling storytelling.
He has already celebrated numerous successes on the opera stage. He made his debut in 2019 at the Kammeroper München, where he performed in over 100 guest appearances throughout the German-speaking world. He has portrayed roles such as Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Baculus in Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz. His recent performance as the Protector in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin at the Theaterakademie München received enthusiastic reviews. In addition to major stage productions, he regularly performs opera for children in smaller formats.
Beyond his stage work, he dedicates himself intensively to concert and song repertoire. His performances include the bass parts in Bach’s Passions, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, and Schubert’s renowned song cycles Winterreise and Schwanengesang.
He has collaborated with renowned orchestras such as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, performing in prestigious venues like the Isarphilharmonie München and the Pierre Boulez Saal.
His artistic achievements have been recognised with numerous awards. In 2024, he won 3rd prize at the Mendelssohn Competition Berlin in the vocal category. In 2020, he was honoured with the Trude Eipperle Rieger Prize, followed by the Youth Culture Award of his hometown, Landshut, in 2022. As a scholarship holder of the Liedakademie Heidelberg under the direction of Thomas Hampson, he further deepened his engagement with the art song repertoire. Since 2023, he has been a recipient of a Live Music Now Munich scholarship, with a Wagner scholarship to follow in 2025.
Encouraged and supported from an early age, he was admitted to the Youth Academy for Highly Gifted Students at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich in 2016. There, he initially studied with Prof. Lars Woldt before completing his bachelor’s degree in 2022. He immediately continued with a master’s program in concert singing, which he further refined in the class of Prof. Christiane Iven from the winter semester of 2023/24. After completing his concert master’s degree with top marks, he is now pursuing a master’s in art song interpretation. He has received significant artistic inspiration from outstanding musicians such as Gerold Huber, Christian Gerhaher, Jörg Widmann, Ian Bostridge, Hartmut Höll, Malcolm Martineau, and Thomas Hampson.
In addition to his singing career, Jakob is also enthusiastic about photography.
He has already celebrated numerous successes on the opera stage. He made his debut in 2019 at the Kammeroper München, where he performed in over 100 guest appearances throughout the German-speaking world. He has portrayed roles such as Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Baculus in Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz. His recent performance as the Protector in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin at the Theaterakademie München received enthusiastic reviews. In addition to major stage productions, he regularly performs opera for children in smaller formats.
Beyond his stage work, he dedicates himself intensively to concert and song repertoire. His performances include the bass parts in Bach’s Passions, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, and Schubert’s renowned song cycles Winterreise and Schwanengesang.
He has collaborated with renowned orchestras such as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, performing in prestigious venues like the Isarphilharmonie München and the Pierre Boulez Saal.
His artistic achievements have been recognised with numerous awards. In 2024, he won 3rd prize at the Mendelssohn Competition Berlin in the vocal category. In 2020, he was honoured with the Trude Eipperle Rieger Prize, followed by the Youth Culture Award of his hometown, Landshut, in 2022. As a scholarship holder of the Liedakademie Heidelberg under the direction of Thomas Hampson, he further deepened his engagement with the art song repertoire. Since 2023, he has been a recipient of a Live Music Now Munich scholarship, with a Wagner scholarship to follow in 2025.
Encouraged and supported from an early age, he was admitted to the Youth Academy for Highly Gifted Students at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich in 2016. There, he initially studied with Prof. Lars Woldt before completing his bachelor’s degree in 2022. He immediately continued with a master’s program in concert singing, which he further refined in the class of Prof. Christiane Iven from the winter semester of 2023/24. After completing his concert master’s degree with top marks, he is now pursuing a master’s in art song interpretation. He has received significant artistic inspiration from outstanding musicians such as Gerold Huber, Christian Gerhaher, Jörg Widmann, Ian Bostridge, Hartmut Höll, Malcolm Martineau, and Thomas Hampson.
In addition to his singing career, Jakob is also enthusiastic about photography.
Parvis Hejazi |
photo by Leon Schlesselmann
Born in 1999, London-based German Persian concert pianist Parvis Hejazi has been acclaimed as a “rising star on the piano sky” (Ulla Hamann, ARD). Born in 1999, Parvis is winner of over 30 national and international piano competitions, including the Grand Prix and Special Prize “Les Maitres du Piano” of the International Piano Competition Gagny, three first prizes at the Federal Jugend musiziert competition in Germany, and five awards at the Jeunesses Musicales Competition for Young Composers (Bundeswettbewerb Komposition). Parvis has performed with the Bremen Philharmonics under the baton of Marko Letonja, with the Jena Philharmonics under the baton of Markus Frank, with Musica Viva Orchestra under the baton of Nicolas Hrudnik, with Wratislavia Chamber Orchestra, Circle Symphony Orchestra, and others. In 2025, Parvis performed Pierre Boulez’s Sur Incises at Bradshaw Hall and CBSO Centre Birmingham under the baton of Daniele Rosina, making him one of only very few pianists to perform the work, which is notorious for its extreme difficulty. Parvis made his debut at Laeiszhalle Hamburg in 2015 upon winning the Federal Jugend Musiziert Competition. In 2016, he made his debut at the Wiener Saal Salzburg in 2016, following the prizewinner’s selection of the International Summer Academy Mozarteum in co-operation with the Salzburg Festival. Parvis now calls national and international stages in over 30 countries home, such as Die Glocke Bremen, Federal Chancellery Berlin, Villa Medici Giulini Milan, Gnessin Auditorium Moscow, the Old War Office London, the Kaufman Center and Klavierhaus in New York City. He has also given lecture recitals at the ConVivial Foundation Wiesbaden and Villa Ichon Bremen. There, Parvis has founded the concert series Salonkonzerte which has as its aim to present young, exceptionally talented musicians and music by underrepresented composers in an informal, salon-like setting, and thus make classical music more accessible to a wider audience.
Parvis has studied with some of the greatest pianists of the present day. In Germany, Austria, Italy, the UK, and the US, Parvis worked with Dmitrii Bashkirov, Dmitrii Alexeev, Konrad Elser, Markus Groh, Christopher Hinterhuber, Boaz Sharon, Stephen Hough, Jacob Leuschner, Igor Levit, Jerome Lowenthal, Gilead Mishory, Alon Goldstein, Dina Parakhina, Jerome Rose, Anatol Ugorski, Bob Versteegh, and Lars Vogt. In 2017, Parvis moved to the United Kingdom to study with Norma Fisher and Vanessa Latarche at the Royal College of Music in London, where he graduated from both Undergraduate and Masters degrees, as well as from the highly prestigious and coveted Artist Diploma in Performance programme as an RCM Scholar with highest distinctions. Since September 2024, Parvis is pursuing a PhD in Musicology on Portrayal and Contemplation of the Incarnation in Olivier Messiaen’s Musical Semantics, with Christopher Dingle, at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham City University. Parvis is a Scholar of the Cusanus Foundation of the German Bishops Conference. In addition, Parvis holds the Bärenreiter Urtext Award, the Music Talks Award, and the Carl Heinz Illies Award.
Before moving to London, Parvis Hejazi studied piano and composition at the Junior Department of the University of the Arts Bremen with Almut Cordes and Jörg Birkenkötter, and has worked with leading composers, such as Mark Andre, Peter Michael Hamel, Martin Christoph Redel, Annette Schlünz, and others. His compositions have been recorded by HR radio. Documentaries, recordings, live broadcasts, and interviews have been transmitted by the BBC World Service, as well as main German television stations, such as ARD, NDR, NDR Kultur, Deutschlandfunk, Radio Bremen, and others.
In addition to his busy performance schedule, Parvis is passionate about musicological and philosophical research. He is particularly interested in the area of aesthetics. He frequently presents papers at academic conferences, most recently at the Royal Musical Association in Aberdeen, at the Inaugural Conference of the International Network for Music Theology in Durham, the Royal Musical Association in Aberdeen and at the ConVivial Foundation in Wiesbaden. Currently, Parvis undertakes research on the semiotic relationship between musical signs and theological meaning in Olivier Messiaen’s music. In 2017, Parvis became one of the youngest ever Fellows of the German Society of Philosophy (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie). From 2017 to 2024, he was a Scholar of the Royal College of Music and of the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst. His sponsors also include Karin and Uwe Hollweg, Susan Sturrock, the Music Talks Foundation, and the Gisela and Erich Andreas Foundation.
In his free time, Parvis enjoys cycling, reading and golf. He lives in Central London.
Parvis has studied with some of the greatest pianists of the present day. In Germany, Austria, Italy, the UK, and the US, Parvis worked with Dmitrii Bashkirov, Dmitrii Alexeev, Konrad Elser, Markus Groh, Christopher Hinterhuber, Boaz Sharon, Stephen Hough, Jacob Leuschner, Igor Levit, Jerome Lowenthal, Gilead Mishory, Alon Goldstein, Dina Parakhina, Jerome Rose, Anatol Ugorski, Bob Versteegh, and Lars Vogt. In 2017, Parvis moved to the United Kingdom to study with Norma Fisher and Vanessa Latarche at the Royal College of Music in London, where he graduated from both Undergraduate and Masters degrees, as well as from the highly prestigious and coveted Artist Diploma in Performance programme as an RCM Scholar with highest distinctions. Since September 2024, Parvis is pursuing a PhD in Musicology on Portrayal and Contemplation of the Incarnation in Olivier Messiaen’s Musical Semantics, with Christopher Dingle, at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham City University. Parvis is a Scholar of the Cusanus Foundation of the German Bishops Conference. In addition, Parvis holds the Bärenreiter Urtext Award, the Music Talks Award, and the Carl Heinz Illies Award.
Before moving to London, Parvis Hejazi studied piano and composition at the Junior Department of the University of the Arts Bremen with Almut Cordes and Jörg Birkenkötter, and has worked with leading composers, such as Mark Andre, Peter Michael Hamel, Martin Christoph Redel, Annette Schlünz, and others. His compositions have been recorded by HR radio. Documentaries, recordings, live broadcasts, and interviews have been transmitted by the BBC World Service, as well as main German television stations, such as ARD, NDR, NDR Kultur, Deutschlandfunk, Radio Bremen, and others.
In addition to his busy performance schedule, Parvis is passionate about musicological and philosophical research. He is particularly interested in the area of aesthetics. He frequently presents papers at academic conferences, most recently at the Royal Musical Association in Aberdeen, at the Inaugural Conference of the International Network for Music Theology in Durham, the Royal Musical Association in Aberdeen and at the ConVivial Foundation in Wiesbaden. Currently, Parvis undertakes research on the semiotic relationship between musical signs and theological meaning in Olivier Messiaen’s music. In 2017, Parvis became one of the youngest ever Fellows of the German Society of Philosophy (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie). From 2017 to 2024, he was a Scholar of the Royal College of Music and of the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst. His sponsors also include Karin and Uwe Hollweg, Susan Sturrock, the Music Talks Foundation, and the Gisela and Erich Andreas Foundation.
In his free time, Parvis enjoys cycling, reading and golf. He lives in Central London.