Sunhae Im was born in South Korea in 1976. From 1994 to 1998 she studied at the College of Music/Seoul National University and with Roland Hermann at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. In 1997 she won First Prize at the Korean Schubert Society Competition and the Grand Prix of the Tenth Korean Youth and Music Competition. In May 2000 she was a finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Singing Competition in Brussels. In February 2000 she was heard as Barbarina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro under Paolo Carigniani at the Frankfurt Opera, and in the following season she sang Valetto and Amor in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. From 2001 to 2004 she was a member of the Hanover Opera and was heard in rôles such as Zerlina, Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Barbarina, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Cupid in Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers, and Yniold in Pelléas et Mélisande. Her oratorio and concert repertoire includes the Bach Passions, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, among many other works. At the Brühler Schloss-Konzerte she sang in Haydn’s The Creation and in Handel’s Siroe, collaborating in the former under William Christie in a much acclaimed tour in 2002, which brought her to the Festivals of Beaune and Aix-en-Provence, to Paris, Caen and Strasbourg as well as to Istanbul, with further appearances under William Christie in 2003 and 2004 in two operas by Charpentier, which brought her also to the United States.