Tag Archives: Voice

MARIMBA/PERCUSSION – Francisco Manuel Anguas Rodríguez (University of Music and Drama Rostock)

Teacher:

© Neda Navaee

Francisco Manuel Anguas Rodríguez was born in Seville, Spain in 1990. After com- pleting his bachelor’s degree at the Royal Conservatory of Music Victoria Eugenia in Granada, he began his master’s degree at the Rostock University of Music and Theater with Henrik M. Schmidt, Torsten Schönfeld, and Jan Frederick Behrend. In 2015 he studied at the Toho University in Tokyo at the invitation of the marimba legend Keiko Abe.

Already during his studies he performed in the Philharmonisches Orchester Vorpommern, serving as principal percussionist in 2016/2017 and principal timpanist in 2017/2018. He gained professional experience as an orchestral musician with the Staatskapelle Berlin and at the Komische Oper Berlin.

From 2015 to 2019 he worked at the Bayreuth Festival. His passion for historical performance practice brought him to international concert stages as principal timpanist with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. As a chamber musician, he is always searching for new tonal colors and combinations.

At his concerts with the Ukrainian Piano Duo Chipak-Kushnir and Elbtonal Percussion, he captivates his audience with his natural approach and his musicality. He is the winner of numerous competitions, including the Ian Murray Competition and the 2008 Ciutat de Llíria Percussion Competition in Llíria, Spain.

PIANO/PIANO DUO – Piano Duo Chipak-Kushnir (University of Music and Drama Rostock)

Teachers:

© Neda Navaee

When Olha Chipak and Oleksiy Kushnir first met in 1998 while studying at the Lviv Music Academy in Ukraine, they could not have imagined where their musical partnership would take them. What they certainly knew, however, was that from that point on they would not only pursue a career as solo artists but also devote themselves to an equal degree to performing chamber music. They soon won their first international competition together (“Roma 98”), but the piano duo—like Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter she is from the legendary music metropolis Odessa on the Black Sea, he from the cultural melting pot of Lviv, where the first music conservatory in the Ukraine was founded as early as 1786—sought more than recognition by juries.

Thus their path as a duo took them to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Rostock where they majored in piano duo performance with Hans-Peter and Volker Stenzl and in 2006 completed their degree in piano ensemble performance (concert exam – Konzertexamen).

The two have since begun to work at the institution as docents for piano and piano duo.

The duo has won numerous international competitions:

1st prize – Rom-98 (international competition)

2nd prize – TIM (Torneo Internazionale di Musica) (2000)

2nd prize – Chamber music competition in Caltanissetta (2000)

1st prize – “Premio Seiler“ in Palermo (2002)

2nd prize – “Palma d’Oro“ in Finale Ligure (2002)

1st prize – Piano duo competition in Bialystok (Poland) (2002)

1st prize – “Piano duo in 20th century“ (Premio Valentino Bucchi) (2003)

2nd prize – Dranoff International Two Piano Competition in Miami (2003)

1st prize – San Marino Piano competition (2006)

Winners of the International Web Concert Hall Competition (2012)

Success at these competitions led to concert performances at important venues in many European countries, the U.S., and China as well as guest performances at festivals such as the Festival “Virtuosi”(Ukraine), the Piano Festival in Trieste (Italy), the “Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern”. The artistry of the duo is documented in recordings for NDR (North German Radio), BR-Classic (Bayern Radio) and television and radio recordings in the Ukraine, Poland and San Marino.

www.chipak-kushnir.de

ART SONG “Conteporary Music is not dissonant per se”- Prof. Hendrik Bräunlich (University of Music and Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy” Leipzig)

Teacher:

Hendrik Bräunlich, was born in Leipzig. Prof. Bräunlich’s pianistic talent, as well as his general involvement in music have been nurtured since early childhood.

From 1986 to 1992 he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Music Conservatory) “Felix Mendelssohn Bertholdy” in Leipzig with emphasis on vocal accompaniment, piano solo and instrumental accompaniment.  There, under the tutelage of Maestro Eugen Wangler, he developed a love for the singing voice, and a passion for accompanying it.

From 1992 to 1997 he studied song interpretation in the postgraduate program at the same conservatory with Lied professor and mentor Prof. Karl-Peter Kammerlander,  During this same period he was given the opportunity to work privately with Charles Spencer, with whom he studied most extensively, and Prof. Hartmut Höll – both great lied interpreters. In addition, he accompanied master classes of well-known singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Schreier, Thomas Hampson and Jakob Stämpfli.  Mr. Stämpli, impressed with his work, invited him to accompany a master class in Sion (Suisse) during the Tibor Varga Festival.

Prof. Bräunlich’s success at the Varga Festival as well as his association with other famous artists led to additional invitations to accompany international singing competitions  such as the Schumann in Zwickau and the Bach in Leipzig. Charles Spencer used his influence to introduce Mr. Bräunlich to world-renowned mezzo-soprano, Christa Ludwig, with whom he became associated for many years – accompanying her master classes in Gumpoldskirchen near Vienna, Wiener Musikverein, Villecroze in France and a national conference of German-speaking singing teachers in Halle/Saale,) to name a few.

Prof. Bräunlich’s accompanying skills were indeed also acknowledged by the fact that he himself became a prize-winner: in 1993 he won the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Prize in Berlin,  and in the same year, the accompanying prize at the International Singing Competition in Tauberbischofsheim. In 1994 he received an award at the International Brahms Singing Competition in Hamburg, and in the 1997 Deutscher Musikwettbewerb awarded him a scholarship. In 1998 he was prize-winner at the first International Hilde Zadek Singing Competition in Passau.

The attention generated by these German music competitions enabled Prof. Bräunlich to start a concert career.  It also resulted in repeated invitations to accompany the above-mentioned competitions and master classes.

Prof. Bräunlich has recorded for all major German broadcasters. He has also participated in various CD projects, including the first recording of Lieder by Georg Göhler.  Other CD recordings include “Hausmusik bei Schumanns” with the Calmus Vocal Ensemble Leipzig, and the award-winning CD of the clarinetist Nicola Jürgensen.

In 1992 Prof. Bräunlich was offered a permanent full-time teaching position at the Leipzig Conservatory; the association with this institution continues to this day.  The pedagogical commitment he has to his students, and his support of their individual development is obviously enriched by his personal history of performing and accompanying.

In 2005, under the auspices of the ERASMUS exchange program, he was invited – together with Leipzig Conservatory Voice Prof. Dr. Jeanette Favaro-Reuter – to participate in coaching Lieder of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy at the Royal College of Music in London. During this period he also tought during the  Leipzig Summer Courses of Puccini’s “Tosca” as well as master classes of clarinettist Allan Key and Prof. Dr. Favaro-Reuter.

Over the last years Prof. Bräunlich has offered classes, free of charge, at the Leipzig Conservatory with primary emphasis on Piano Lied literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has offered addition classes on topics such as “Robert Schumann´s Lieder” and “Claude Debussy´s Lieder and Chants”.

His involvement with 20th and 21st century Lied has led Prof. Bräunlich to an even greater concentration on contemporary music. In 2022, together with soprano Lisa Fornhammar, he developed a special New Music Program. The theme for the 2023/24 session is “New Music is not per se dissonant”.

Foyerkonzert: Du bist wie eine Blume

Anlässlich des Weltfrauentags am 8. März ist die Liedklasse der Hochschule für Musik Mainz mit einem Programm „Du bist wie eine Blume“, das inhaltlich ganz den Damen dieser Welt gewidmet ist, zu Gast in den Foyerkonzerten der Internationalen Musikakademie Sankt Goar im Glasfoyer der Rheinfelshalle.

Auf dem Programm stehen Werke u.a. von Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Hugo Wolf und Sergej Rachmaninoff.

PIANO – Prof. Andreas Weber (University Mozarteum Salzburg)

Teacher:

Andreas Weber began his pianistic education at the Music University of Cologne with Prof. Karin Merle and continued with Prof. Hans Leygraf at the University of Music in Salzburg.

His gives concerts as a soloist and as chamber musician in Europe and Asia, i.a. with the Trio Cartellieri and with the Violinist Albert Fischer.

Television recordings in Austria, Korea and China.

He holds many Masterclasses in Korea, China, Germany and Belgium and is member of jury in national and international piano competitions in Germany, Austria, China and Korea.

He made CD recordings with the Cellist Hanna Spielbüchler (Brahms, Schubert and Franck) as well with the Violinist Albert Fischer (Mozart, Brahms, Schubert) and with the Trio Cartellieri (Turina, Takacs, Piazzolla).

Since 2002 Andreas Weber is professor for piano at the University Mozarteum and since 2005 he is the head of the Leopold-Mozart-Institut for highly talented young students and is promoting young talents at national and international level.

Since 2009 he is professor at the International Summer Academy of Mozarteum.

Many of his students are prize winners of international piano competitions.

 

VOICE – Dr. Emilio Pons

 

The career of tenor Emilio Pons has taken him across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

Since his professional debut in 2006 at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he has performed internationally at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Theater Sankt Gallen, Switzerland; the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen, Denmark; the Vlaamse Opera, Ghent & Antwerp, Belgium; the Sankt Margarethen Opera Festival, and the Wiener Kammeroper in Austria; and the Prinzregenten Theater, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, the Magravial Opera House in Bayreuth, Theater Freiburg and Theater Heidelberg, in Germany; Vilnius City Opera, in Lithuania; Opéra de Metz, in France; Opera Siam in Bangkok, Thailand; as well as Compañía Nacional de Ópera de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, and the Teatro Municipal de Santiago, in Chile and Theatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
 
His operatic repertoire encompasses more than thirty roles, including: staples of the light lyric Fach such as Tamino (Mozart, Die Zauberflöte), Ferrando (Mozart, Così fan Tutte), Don Ottavio (Mozart, Don Giovanni), Il Conte d’Almaviva (Rossini, Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Nemorino (Donizetti, L’elisir d’amore), Narraboth (Strauss, Salome), Le Chevalier de la Force (Poulenc, Dialogues des Carmélites), Trouffaldino (Prokofiev, L’amour des trois oranges) and Lensky (Tchaikovsky, Yevgenij Onegin); a myriad of leading roles in lesser known works, including the title role in Porsile’s Spartaco, Mad Woman (Britten, Curlew River), Hypollit (Henze, Phaedra), Egeo and Sole (Cavalli, Il Giasone, commercially released on DVD), Richmond (Battistelli, Richard III), Serge/Adolphe (Martinů, Die Drei Wünsche), Le Commissaire (Martinů, Juliette), Fernando (in the German première of Granados’ Goyescas); and various supporting roles such as Arbace (Mozart, Idomeneo), Arturo (Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor), Jaquino (Beethoven, Fidelio), Pong (Puccini, Turandot), Laërtes (Thomas, Mignon), Beppe/Arlecchin (Leoncavallo, Pagliacci) and Malcolm (Verdi,  Macbeth) amongst others.
 
He has sung under the baton of acclaimed conductors such as Mikhail Jurowsky, Daniele Callegari, Jiří Bělohlávek, Ingo Metzmacher, Enoch zu Guttenberg, Frédéric Chaslin, Zoltan Pesko, Niksa Bareza, Federico Maria Sardelli, Rodolfo Fischer and Cornelius Meister amongst others; has worked with renowned stage directors such as Robert Carsen, Christof Loy, Guy Joosten, Richard Jones, Pier Francesco Maestrini, Jean-Louis Benôit, Mariame Clément and Benedikt von Peter, and has shared the stage with prominent singers such as Diana Damrau, Jennifer Larmore, Sophie Koch, KS Francisco Araiza, and Franco Vasallo, amongst others.
 
On the concert and recital stage, he has performed recitals in Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Russia, Japan, Azerbaijan (with the London Philharmonic Orchestra) and Israel (with the Jerusalem Camerata and the Be’er Sheva Sinfonietta).
 
Dr. Pons is co-founder and artistic director of the Sankt Goar International Music Festival and Academy.
 

Emilio Pons holds a graduate degree in Piano from the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico and a Juris Doctor Degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana, in addition to Master and Doctor of Music Degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he was a student of Carlos Montané and Andreas Poulimenos. In Europe, he continued to study privately under the tutelage of KS Francisco Araiza and Lyubov Stuchevskaya, and currently, of Neumar de Kanel-Starling.

Dr. Pons has been a recipient of numerous scholarships and grants, including Mexico’s prestigious FONCA (National Endowment for the Arts), SIVAM (International Society of Mexican Artistic Values) scholarships (2000-2002), the Olympia Barbera and Culver Miller scholarships at the Indiana University School of Music (2002-2004), and INBA (National Fine Arts Institute of Mexico, as of 2003). He is a prize-winner of the Irma Cooper (2005), Palm Beach Opera (2005) and Pavel Lisitsian (2006) competitions and the RBT-Preis München award at the Hans Gabor “Belvedere” (2007) competition in Vienna.

A skilled polyglot, Dr. Pons speaks English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Russian — all fluently.

Dr. Pons is a dual citizen of Mexico and Germany. He is a member of the European Cultural Parliament.

VOICE — Wolfgang Klose (University of Music Rostock)

Teachers: 

© Anne-Marie von Sarosdy

Stylistic variety, authentic sound and the synthesis of word and music are the most basic elements of singing for the tenor Wolfgang Klose. He received significant impetuses from Thomas Heyer, Mario Hoff and Konrad Jarnot as well as on master classes with Francisco Araiza, Julie Kaufmann and Kurt Widmer.

He performed e.g. Tamino (Magic Flute), Symon (Bettelstudent) and Pylades (Iphigenie on Tauris) on the opera stage. Besides from off stage productions he performed at Händelfestspiele Halle, Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Bühnen der Stadt Köln.

His favorite work is dedicated to the oratorio stage: he is performing all main repertoire from Renaissance to contemporary music, mostly known for his interpretations of the cantatas and oratorios of the baroque and classical epoch. Being guest of numerous festivals and stages all over Europe and the USA he performs with symphonic orchestras and HIP ensembles.

In 2013 the he received a 1st price from Verband Deutscher Konzertchöre. Recordings of broadcasting services and CD labels are available such as WDR, rbb, SWR, Carus Verlag, Virgin Classics (former Label: EMI France) and cpo.

Having graduated at Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf and University of Music Mainz he has been teaching on university level for many years. Nowadays he teaches singing at Hochschule of Music und Theater Rostock and Folkwang University of Arts Essen.