Hanns Petersen

Hanns-Herbert Schulz (26 June 1927 – 9 June 2006), better known as Hanns Petersen, was a German opera singer (baritone), music college teacher and pop singer.

He is known for his career in popular music (Schlager), his many operatic performances at the Semperoper and the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar and his work as a professor at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber and Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar.

Hanns-Herbert Schulz, the son of Ella Schulz-Schulenburg and Walter Schulz, solo cellist at the German National Theater Weimar and professor at the Leipzig University of Music and director of the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar, studied the violoncello as a guest student from 1942 to 1944.

Thereafter, he studied singing under Hauschild and opera production with Kranz at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar from 1945 to 50.

After graduating, he began both his career as a soloist and as an opera singer at the German National Theater Weimar under his real name Hanns-Herbert Schulz and his career as a singer in light entertainment music under the pseudonym Hanns Petersen.

Hanns Petersen's career began as a singer with the Leipzig Radio Dance Orchestra (Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Leipzig) conducted by Kurt Henkels.

Petersen became known through his numerous radio productions, television broadcasts, Amiga recordings and public events.

However, first recordings were made on Weimar's provincial radio (Landessender Weimar) as early as 1946.

In June 1951 he also took part in the ' 3. Tag des Rundfunks' as a singer in the Kurt Henkels Orchestra.

In the same year he published the popular song Am Samstag Um Vier (On Saturday at Four) with singer Sonja Siewert.

Petersen also sang several duets and love songs with the German pop singer Irma Baltuttis.

After finishing his studies, Hanns-Herbert Schulz sang at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar from 1952 to 1959 and at the Staatsoper Dresden (Semperoper) from 1959 to 1962, as well as from 1965 to 1969.

1959 he ended his career in the Schlager genre.

He became a widely acclaimed opera singer through his performances as Nabucco, Don Giovanni, Kaspar (Der Freischütz) and Eugen Onegin et al. In the meantime (from 1962 to 1965) he was also working as an opera singer at the Opernhaus Leipzig.

Schulz taught from 1968 as a lecturer, from 1970 as a singing teacher and from 1983 to 1992 as professor for singing in the dance and popular music department at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar.

In 1970 he was instrumental in setting up the popular music departments at the music academies in Dresden and Weimar, where he began teaching singing.

In 1986 he received his professorship in Dresden.

Many well-known German singers, such as Veronica Fischer, Reinhard Fißler, Heinz-Jürgen Gottschalk, Ike Moriz, Ute Freudenberg, Brigitte Stefan and Tom Luca studied singing under Schulz.

He remained connected to the university as a lecturer until 1994.

All published by Amiga (record label):

He taught here for a total of over thirty years until shortly before his death in 2006.