Thomas Quasthoff was born on November 9, 1959, in Hildesheim, Germany, with severe physical disabilities caused by his mother’s use of thalidomide during pregnancy. Denied admission to the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover on account of his disability rather than talent, he studied voice privately while also completing law studies and working for six years as a radio announcer before turning fully to a singing career.

Quasthoff rose to international prominence after winning the 1988 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, drawing praise from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and went on to make his operatic debut as Don Fernando in Fidelio at the 2003 Salzburg Festival. He won three Grammy Awards for Best Classical Vocal Performance (2000, 2004, 2006), received the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize (2009) and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s gold medal (2009), and after retiring from singing in 2012 became a noted vocal pedagogue and founder of the Das Lied international song competition; he is currently a professor at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Quasthoff