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Join Our International Masterclass for Lied Duos now!

international masterclass for lied duos

18 – 25 May 2025

Joining our International Masterclass for Lied Duos means seizing the opportunity to work on your artistic development in a stimulating environment with the world’s greatest masters of art song.

Masters in 2025

Our patron Robert Holl will again teach for two days, focussing on songs by Schubert. In addition, your teachers will be Christoph Prégardien, Susan Manoff and Hans Eijsackers, who will also perform during the festival. Performance coach Waltraud Österreicher and Professor of Musicology Natasha Loges complete the 2025 teaching team.

Festival theme 2025: The Future of Music – Music of the Future

To say we live in turbulent times is not overrated. The age we live in presents us with big questions for our future. War and famine, near and far, rage all around us, claiming tens of thousands of victims. Moreover, the huge challenges of climate change, creating a sustainable world and habitable living circumstances for everyone loom up at the horizon. Could music, and for us in particular song, play a role in this?

That’s why we chose The Future of Music – Music of the Future as our 2025 theme; a theme that invites us to shed light on concepts such as ‘future’ and ’time’ in different ways. What does the passing of time mean? Is it possible for us to be ‘ahead of our time’ and make our dreams for the future come true?

It might sound cliché, but the future belongs to the next generation! So, in 2025 also, we continue offering an extensive amount of room to provide masterclasses for young, professional song duos. Promising talents will point out the road lying before of us during the Young Artist Platform, the Winners’ Recital and theatrical showcases. Because they are the performers of tomorrow. And of course, primary and secondary school pupils make themselves heard. Because if we know how to captivate them now, they will embrace the art of song in the future.

Masterclass 2025: 18 – 25 May 2024

Our 8-day International Masterclass lasts from Sunday to Sunday and consists of a unique series of both public and private lessons on interpretation, poetry, language, cultural history and performance coaching. All sessions take place in the historic and green surroundings of the Moravian Church nearby Slot Zeist (Zeist Castle).

Welcome, getting acquainted, informal get-together with masters, attending recitals: Sunday, 18 May
Masterclass sessions and attending recitals: Monday, 19 May – Friday, 23 May
Presentation recital and closing lunch: Saturday, 24 May
Recitals by masterclass students at locations in (the vicinity of) Zeist: Sunday, 25 May

Repertoire requirements

Please take note of the following conditions concerning your choice of songs. We invite you to send us a proposal for a recital consisting of a minimum of 8 songs considering this year’s festival theme. Your programme is required to feature the following:

at least 3 songs in German, two of them by Schubert
2 songs in French
2 songs in English
and one or two in another language fitting your program proposal

Also, include a short motivation for your programme proposal in your application.

During the masterclass, you will have the opportunity to work on parts of your proposed programme. The masters will choose in consultation with you which songs will be worked on; we do not allow duplications during the sessions. All songs must be sung by heart. However, participants are advised to take notes, so keep your scores on stage.

Application and admission

The masterclass is meant for (pre)professional singer-pianist duos. We do not accept applications form singers or pianists separately. To apply, please send in the completed application form and upload the following:

individual photos of both singer and pianist as separate files (jpeg, pdf, tiff, eps / max 4 Mb each)
a biography (so not a resume) of both singer and pianist (max 300 words, in English or German, in word-format without any lay-out or pictures)
a link to a YouTube video (or 2 separate ones) featuring a performance of 2 songs (contrasting in character) by you and your duo partner in high quality of both picture and sound
your programme proposal and motivation (max 300 words, in English of German, in word-format without any lay-out)

You should send in your application before 15 March 2025. Applicants will receive notice before 1 April 2025 whether they have been accepted.

Tuition fee

The tuition fee for the masterclass is € 350,00 per musician and must be paid before 1 May 2025:

IBAN NL03 SNSB 0925 0975 43
Stichting Internationaal Lied Festival Zeist
Citing: Tuition fee masterclass

Your admission will automatically be cancelled if the tuition fee has yet to be received by 1 May 2025.

Accommodation

Participants will be accommodated with host families from Saturday, 17, until Sunday, 25 May 2025. Coffee, tea, and lunch will be provided on masterclass days. In addition, you will receive a passe-partout for all recitals during the festival.

Why choose our International Masterclass?

Broad curriculum
Continuous development is essential for the careers of young singer-pianist duos. That’s why our masterclass is an inseparable part of the International Lied Festival Zeist. We offer a unique opportunity to work with renowned singers and pianists who have earned excellent reputations. You can expect a broad and immersive curriculum ranging from public sessions on interpretation to private performance coaching and lectures on poetry, culture and history.
Become a unique duo
The masterclass offers both private and public teachings. During the private sessions, the masters will work with you on forging and moulding your craftmanship to become a unique duo of your own by focusing on the unity of text and music. Music and poetry will be treated equally and thoroughly. Due to the private setting, masters and students build the trust necessary to enhance artistic expressiveness through experiment.
Interaction with a warm audience
The public sessions are attended by a relatively large, educated, and eager but friendly audience. It is offered a rare chance to see artists grow on the spot, a ‘glimpse behind the scenes’. But, more importantly, it has a function on its own. As young singers and pianists, you experience whether what you have learned as a duo comes across, which enables you to craft your musicianship in dialogue with the audience. The intricate interaction between music and text, your duo, and the audience comes to life during these sessions. When young talents succeed in establishing this threefold relationship, a bright future lies ahead. That is what makes our masterclass so extraordinarily special.
Working together as a group
Our aim is to create a welcoming and friendly environment, in which artistry can blossom and you feel invited to explore your ambitions. Setting goals and working hard to reach them can be a personal, somewhat lonesome journey at times. Inspired by Schubert’s Freundeskreis – the theme of our first festival but always at the heart of everything we do – we offer an opportunity of a lifetime where you also find new professional friends for the rest of your career.
International opportunities
Participating in the masterclass also means embarking on our Next Generation programme. Participants of our International Masterclass will be invited to join our Young Artists Platform in the coming years. Winning this audition means further performance opportunities in future editions of the International Lied Festival Zeist and our international collaborators, such as Oxford Song and Vilabeltran.

masters

Robert Holl

Over the years, Robert Holl has become one of the most renowned interpreters of Lied of our time. He is well-known for the expressivity of his interpretations and the intimacy he invokes. Always putting the text first during a recital is distinctive in his performances. Robert Holl’s vision of the art of song is rooted deeply in his extensive knowledge of poets and the philosophy of the time they lived in. Since 1998 Robert Holl is a professor at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. Robert Holl was the first artistic leader of International Lied Festival Zeist in 2015 and serves as its patron, together with Elly Ameling.

Susan Manoff

Susan Manoff is a beloved pianist. She regularly performs at international festivals and in renowned concert halls worldwide, including Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Musikverein in Vienna. Manoff believes in sharing knowledge and experience, which she does with verve during the many masterclasses she gives.
Manoff released many CDs, including one with Véronique Gens. Their album Néère – with songs by Reynaldo Hahn – was awarded a Gramophone Award. Manoff was assistant choral conductor at the Opéra Bastille and is currently a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. In 2011 she was awarded for her outstanding achievements in music. With Laurence Kilsby, one of the most promising young singers of our times, she will give the closing recital.

Christoph Prégardien

Christoph Prégardien is highly acclaimed for the great control of his voice and his diction. He knows how to get to the heart of the works he performs, making him one of the greatest lyric tenors of our time and in popular demand. His performances bring him to concert halls worldwide. His repertoire is multifaceted and spans many eras: from Baroque to the twentieth century. The more than 150 CDs he has recorded have been showered with awards. In addition, Prégardien has been a professor at the Musikhochschule Köln since 2004. He has published an innovative book and DVD on vocal technique and music interpretation. During opening night he and Hans Eijsackers will bring a recital with songs by Wolfgang Rihm – one of the most influential contemporary composers – in an exciting alternation with songs by Schubert.

Natasha Loges

Natasha Loges is an esteemed scholar of German song, gender, concert history, the relations between text and music, and the lives and works of Brahms, Robert, and Clara Schumann. In 2021 she was awarded her own chair at the Royal College of Music, and in the spring of 2022, she was appointed professor of musicology at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. Her publications include several books on Brahms’ life and work. Outside of her academic activities, Loges is a lecturer – regularly to be heard on BBC Radio 3, where she also performs as a pianist – and is a writer for BBC Music Magazine.

Waltraud Österreicher

Austrian actress Waltraud Österreicher is a versatile person. She graduated as a musician and actor and made several films and theatre performances at home and abroad. Her passion for people and her broad background in music, theatre, and psychology mean she is now a sought-after musician coach.
She gained significant knowledge on vocalisation and text delivery, diction, pantomime, posture and movement, and group dynamics. Her expertise and experience enable her to analyse a musician’s unique gifts and personal barriers quickly. With all her diverse training and coaching, extensive experience, and strong intuition, she loves to accompany musicians into a happy, fulfilling, and successful life, both professionally and personally.

Hans Eijsackers

Hans Eijsackers is a renowned pianist who regularly appears on stage as a soloist, chamber musician and collaborative pianist. As such, he has worked with numerous singers and instrumentalists worldwide. With baritone Henk Neven, he has formed a longstanding collaboration as a lied duo. Since 2013 he has worked as a professor of Liedgestaltung at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf and teaches chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In addition, he regularly is a member of national and international juries, teaches masterclasses and is the artistic leader of the International Student LiedDuo Competition in Groningen. In 2022, Eijsackers and Henk Neven took over the festival’s artistic direction from Robert Holl. Hans Eijsackers will appear in concert at opening night with Christoph Prégardien and on Friday 23 May with Henk Neven and Dutch writer Arthur Japin.

application form masterclass

first name singer

last name singer

date of birth

adress

zip code

city

country

mobile phone

website

name accompanist

last name accompanist

date of birth

adress

zip code

city

country

mobile phone

website

photo singer / max 4 mb

biography singer / max 4 mb

photo accompanist / max 4 mb

biography accompanist / max 4 mb

programm / max 4 mb

motivation / max 4 mb

YouTube link

uploads:
photo: jpeg, pdf, tiff, eps / max 4 mb.
biography: pdf, word (doc, docx) / max 4 mb.
programm: pdf, word (doc, docx) / max 4 mb.
motivation: pdf, word (doc, docx) / max 4 mb.
video: please copy and paste a link to your YouTube video

Having trouble with your application? Contact us at: masterclass@ilfz.nl