2009. In January 2012, Quasthoff announced his retirement from public performance. He cited various reasons such as illness, the strains of touring, and the death of his brother Michael from lung cancer. He later returned to performance. This included appearing in concert in 2016, notably as the speaker in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder. He performed as Feste in the play Twelfth Night. He also performed with his jazz quartet and with a spoken role in a semi-staged opera at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2021. Quasthoff is also a voice professor. He previously taught at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Germany. He is currently a professor at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. He led development of Das Lied, a biennial international song competition that started in 2009. Awards Quasthoff has received three Grammy awards during his career to 2021. He won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance in 2000, for his recording with Anne Sofie von Otter of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, along with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado. His recordings of the songs of Brahms, Liszt and Schubert accompanied by pianist Justus Zeyen were nominated for the Grammy in 2000 and 2001. He won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the second time in 2004. It was for Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra which Quasthoff performed with von Otter and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Abbado. Quasthoff won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the third time in 2006 with Rainer Kussmaul, the Berlin Baroque Soloists and the RIAS Chamber Choir in their recording of J. S. Bach: Cantatas. In 2008, he was a soloist on the Grammy-winning recording of Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (Simon Rattle, conductor; Simon Halsey, chorus master) on EMI Classics. In 2005, Quasthoff received Germany's Great Cross of Merit. In 2009, he was awarded the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize. That same year he was awarded the Gold Medal for outstanding musicianship by the Royal Philharmonic Society. Personal life In 2006, Quasthoff married Claudia Stelzig, a German TV journalist. In a 2003 interview, Quasthoff revealed that he is an active political thinker, is a socialist, and was opposed to the Iraq War. He also expressed regret that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict could not be resolved via compromise. References External links Profile, Deutsche Grammophon German bass-baritones Operatic bass-baritones Lieder singers Grammy Award winners Classical musicians