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Lana Sophie Westendorf

  • soprano
Soprano Lana Sophie Westendorf has been studying for a Master's degree in Music Theatre with Lioba Braun at the University of Music and Dance Cologne since October 2024. Prior to that, she obtained her Bachelor's degree in Voice at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media, where she studied in the class of Sabine Ritterbusch.

biography

From September 2026, she will be part of the International Opera Studio Cologne, where she will perform in various productions. From February to May 2025, she played the role of the Princess in Puss in Boots at the Allee Theater in Hamburg. In 2025, in collaboration with the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, she took part in a WDR recording of the opera Partenope of La Mancha, in which she sang the role of Arsace.

In 2024 she took part in the Barock Vokal Akademie, an early music specialisation programme, under the direction of Andreas Scholl. There she worked with Elisabeth Scholl and with renowned conductors such as Alessandro De Marchi, Paul Goodwin and György Vashegyi.

Alongside her opera work, she is heavily committed to the liedrepertoire. Together with pianist Federica Stevanato she forms a multiple award-winning lied duo. Their accolades include first prize at the 1st Rösrath Lied duo competition (2025) and first prize at the Isenbügel Music Competition (2026). Since January 2026, Lana Sophie Westendorf and Federica Stevanato have been receiving support through the Live Music Now scholarship and performing at Vrienden van het Lied.

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programmes

Lana Sophie Westendorf, soprano
Federica Stevanato, piano

Untaming Lied – Songs Beyond Borders is a programme that deliberately plays with expectations. The title uses the term ‘untaming’ here to mean freeing the repertoire from its conventions and opening it up beyond the boundaries of the usual canon.
All the works are by composers who have experienced discrimination in one way or another and whose works do not form part of the usual art lied repertoire. We are opening up the repertoire to voices that have historically been excluded from the canon, for example women and queer composers.
Yet this biographical similarity is not the programme’s sole theme. The common thread lies, in fact, in the diversity of the music itself. Romantic art meets chanson, humour meets melancholy, intimacy meets caricature. It is precisely through their differences that the works complement one another, thus forming a colourful programme so varied that it almost seems amusing to simply call it ‘lied’.

Click here for the programme >