Born in Jena, Germany, Friederike Meinel grew up in Berlin and studied first at the Berlin University of Arts with Ingrid Figur and later with Rudolf Piernay in Mannheim. She was a master student of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Aribert Reimann for several years. In 1999 she completed her diploma at the UdK in Berlin and in 2002 she took her concert exam at the HfM in Mannheim.
Other important teachers for Friederike Meinel were Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Ingrid Bjoner and Irmgard Boas.

The soprano has won international competitions and prizes, including the Paula Lindberg Salomon Singing Competition, the Yamaha Scholarship Singing Competition and the O.E. Hasse Prize, which was awarded to her by the O.E. Hasse Foundation and the Akademie der Künste. She is a Richard Wagner scholarship holder and has won a Jütting scholarship.

Friederike Meinel was a member of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Subsequently, she was a member of the ensemble of the Wuppertal Opera House and then of the Cologne Opera House. The singer made her Vienna debut (Wiener Festwochen) with the title role in “Penthesilea – Ein Traum” under the direction of Ulf Schirmer.

She sang the role of Hilde in the world premiere of “Celan” at the Semperoper in Dresden under the direction of Marc Albrecht and the world premiere of “Glas im Bauch” at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In the course of her career to date, the singer has sung the roles of Tatjana (Eugene Onegin), Freia (Das Rheingold), 3rd Norn and Gutrune (Götterdämmerung), Ortlinde (Die Walküre), Madame Lidoine (Dialog der Karmeliterinnen), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) at major opera houses throughout Europe.

In the course of her operatic career, the singer has worked with conductors such as Jun Märkl, Peter Schneider, Jeffrey Tate, Marc Albrecht, Zubin Metha, Ivor Bolton, William Lacey and Howard Griffiths as well as directors Claus Guth, Robert Carsen and Michael Hampe and has performed with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra. Lieder recitals and concerts have taken the soprano to Cologne, where she performed an recital as part of the Cologne Philharmonic and WDR concert series “Franz Schubert-Die Lieder” under the artistic direction of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. In Chicago, she was heard as part of the Ravinia Festival. The artist has also appeared in 6 CD and 2 film productions (including the final end credits song for the soundtrack of Tom Cruise’s Hollywood movie “Valkyrie”).

The soprano leads a singing class at the University of Arts in Szczecin and a singing class at the “Louis Spohr” Music Academy in Kassel. She passes on her experience to students in master classes and singing workshops at home and abroad. In Kenya, she teaches as a professor within the EU-funded TPPAE project (Transcultural Perspectives in Art and Art Education).

The singer completed her doctorate in 2018. She has also published several articles on Carl Loewe, Felix Nowowiejski and vocal aspects of bel canto.

From 2008 to 2016, she was the patron of the award-winning charity concert series “Kinder helfen Kindern-Musik schafft Zukunft” for Catania. In summer 2016, she was appointed Kiwanis Ambassador Germany and is now continuing this series for Kiwanis Germany.