Markus Schäfer, born June 13, 1961 in Andernach, Germany, is a German lyric tenor. He grew up in Bad Ems, where his father was a church musician. He studied singing with Armand McLane and sacred music in Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe, making his operatic debut with the Zurich Opernstudio before joining ensembles at the Zurich Opera, the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. Schäfer's recordings include the secular Bach cantatas Angenehmes Wiederau, BWV 30a and Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten, BWV 207 conducted by Gustav Leonhardt, as well as Mozart's Zaide under Martin Haselböck and a 2017 recording of Wilhelm Killmayer's song cycles with pianist Siegfried Mauser. His recording of Bach's St Matthew Passion with Nikolaus Harnoncourt won a Grammy Award. He began teaching as a professor of voice at the Musikhochschule Hannover in 2008, and performed as a soloist with the Windsbacher Knabenchor and La Petite Bande.
