Magdalena Kožená

Born in Brno, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená studied at the Brno Conservatory and with Eva Blahová at Bratislava’s Academy of Performing Arts. She won widespread recognition in 1995 after taking first prize at the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist from 1999, she released numerous acclaimed recordings, before moving to Pentatone in 2017. Her discography spans Baroque opera, Czech song, French mélodie and major recital collaborations with Yefim Bronfman and Mitsuko Uchida, earning her awards including Gramophone Artist of the Year, the Echo Klassik, Record Academy Prize Tokyo and Diapason d’Or.

Kožená regularly appears with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Berlin, Vienna and Czech Philharmonics, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras, and has worked with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink and Gustavo Dudamel. Equally celebrated as a recitalist, she has appeared with partners including Daniel Barenboim, Kirill Gerstein, András Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and the Salzburg, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Festivals.

On the opera stage she has sung in some of the most important theatres from Salzburg Festival to the Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Glyndebourne Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Liceu Barcelona and many more, performing roles in operas by Monteverdi through to Kaja Saariaho. This season, she returns to her beloved Staatsoper Berlin for her role debut as the Fox Cunning Little Vixen and Mélisande Pélleas et Mélisande, and makes her role debut as Ariodante in a weighty European tour with La Cetra Barockensemble.
Concert highlights of the 2025/26 season include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Lucerne Festival, a European tour of Berio’s Folk Songs with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Daniel Harding, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été with the Vienna Philharmonic, and further concerts with the Czech Philharmonic and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and others.

Magdalena was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2003.