Choir
Markus Heissig
Markus Heissig was born in Schwandorf and worked there from an early age as a cantor at St Mary’s Minster and as a school choir and orchestra director. He also performed in chamber music ensembles and wrote as a freelance music critic for the »Mittelbayerische Zeitung«. During his military service, he was a member of the chamber orchestra in the Regensburg Army Music Corps and a solo piper in the marching band. He completed his vocal studies with Felix Rolke in Munich. He appeared in various tenor roles at the opera school of the Richard Strauss Conservatory, including as Sellem (»The Rakeʼs Progress«). He received his first theatre engagement at the Munich Residenztheater in Raimund’s »Der Verschwender«.
Markus Heissig has been a member of the opera choir of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz as 2nd tenor since 1992. His particular passion is international folklore. As a fiddler, he plays a repertoire ranging from Yiddish klezmer music and Irish folk to gypsy swing, Viennese music and hits from the 1920s and 1930s in various formations; he has also interpreted the latter repeatedly as a singer in arrangements for male vocal quintets in the footsteps of the Comedian Harmonists.