The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc.
He appears regularly at all the major music centres: the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Schubertiade, and Salzburg Music Festivals; Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre New York; the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Philarmonie Berlin; the Châtalet and Musée de Louvre Paris; La Scala Milan and Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid; Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna; and Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms London.
Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000 - 2003, Julius Drake was also musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and New York. Since 2009 he has been Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival in Wales.
Julius Drake is also a committed teacher and is invited to give master classes worldwide, recently in Aldeburgh, Brussels, Cincinatti, Toronto, Utrecht, and regularly at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien.
He holds a Professorship at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts in Austria, where he has a class for song pianists.
Julius Drake’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for the Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. A series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding vocal artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Iestyn Davies, Sergei Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Simon Keenlyside, Christoph Prégardien, and Sir Willard White.
Julius Drake is frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals – most recently, Lockenhaus in Austria; West Cork in Ireland; Oxford in England; Boswil in Switzerland and Delft in the Netherlands.

Raoul Steffani is last year’s winner of the Nederlandse Muziekprijs, the highest award that can be given to a musician by the Dutch State. He received the prize from the State Secretary for Culture Gunay Uslu during a concert with ASKO|Schönberg in the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. He previously won the GrachtenfestivalPrijs 2018, among other prizes and was a member of Equilibrium, Barbara Hannigan’s young artists’ programme.

In summer 2023, he sang the role of Johann in Massenet’s Werther at the Bregenzer Festspiele and made his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall in Handel’s Chandos Anthems with ensemble Arcangelo led by Jonathan Cohen. This season, he will sing John Adams’ The Wound Dresser at the opening of the Musica Sacra festival in Maastricht with philharmonie zuidnederland, Beethoven Symphony No 9 with Phion, Christmas concerts with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Mozart arias with the Residentie Orkest conducted by Richard Egarr and Jesus in Bach’s St. John Passion with the hr-sinfonieorchester / Frankfurt Radio Symphony led by Alain Altinoglu, among other projects. He makes his recital debut at the Schubertiade Wieden in the Ehrbar-Saal in Vienna and sings Die schöne Müllerin with pianist Severin von Eckardstein.

In May and June 2024, Raoul will sing the roles of Germano and Gaudenzio in Opera Zuid’s new double bill production of Rossini’s La Scala di Seta and Il Signor Bruschino on tour in the Netherlands.

Recently, Raoul sang the role of Ramiro in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole at the Opéra National de Lyon, after which he was invited to sing Ned Keene in Britten’s Peter Grimes in Friesland and Ramiro at the Opéra de Toulon. In 2022, he made his debut at Dutch National Opera in a new creation Operetta Land.

Other recent highlights include Bach’s St John Passion (Jesus) with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment led by Mark Padmore in Brussels, Paris, London, Girona and Amsterdam, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Ensemble Domestica, Frank Martin’s Ode à la musique with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marcus Creed, several Matthäus Passion concerts with Phion (Jesus) conducted by Reinhard Goebel and with philharmonie zuidnederland (aria’s) conducted by Duncan Ward and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Residentie Orkest conducted by Anja Bihlmaier.

As a soloist, he has previously worked with conductors such as Sir Mark Elder, Benjamin Goodson, Antony Hermus, Vladimir Jurowsky, Sigiswald Kuijken, Lawrence Renes, Ed Spanjaard, Otto Tausk, Jos van Veldhoven and David Zinman.

Since the beginning of his career, Raoul Steffani has had a great passion for the Lieder repertoire. He has given recitals at Oxford Lieder Festival, International Lied Festival Zeist, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. He has recorded two solo albums for Challenge Classics with pianist Gerold Huber: Love’s Spring (2021) featuring songs and duets by Robert and Clara Schumann with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. About his debut album Deep in a dream, featuring early works by Schumann, Grieg, Sibelius and Berg, the international press wrote: “This is all first-rate, refined singing with lucid diction, elegant technique, and a palpable affinity for what he is singing. (American Record Guide, 2018) In October 2022, Alpha Records released the album Sehnsucht, with Barbara Hannigan, Camerata RCO and Raoul Steffani, featuring his performance of Berg’s Vier Gesänge Op. 2 in a new orchestration.

Raoul studied at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and with Margreet Honig at the conservatories of Amsterdam and Tilburg, where he graduated summa cum laude. He took master classes with Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig, Dame Felicity Lott and Elly Ameling, among others. From 2016 to 2018, he was a member of the Dutch National Opera Academy, where he sang the role of Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. In addition to his vocal studies, Raoul studied Swedish language and culture at the University of Amsterdam.