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Join our International Master Class for Lied!

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international master class for lied duos

14 – 21 May 2023

Joining our master class 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 2023

Patrons Elly Ameling and Robert Holl will each teach for two days. In addition, your teachers are Dame Sarah Connolly, Wolfram Rieger, Malcolm Martineau and Hans Eijsackers, who will also perform during the festival. Performance coach Waltraud Österreicher, poetry and language expert Cas Jönsthövel and musicologist Natasha Loges complete the 2023 teaching team.

Festival theme 2023: Wanderlust

In 2023 the festival theme is ‘Wanderlust’: an intense yearning to travel and discover the world. Wanderlust is the desire to go elsewhere and look for new experiences outside one’s realm of experience and be able to divert from the grind of daily life and routine or even reject social conventions. During the festival, our focus is on wandern: travelling, wandering, going down beaten tracks and new paths out of idealism, love, disaster, religious conviction, curiosity, or nostalgia. The negative and positive aspects of the need to hit the road are addressed.

Schedule 2023: May 14 – 21, 2023
  • Welcome, getting acquainted and first master class session: Sunday, May 14
  • Masterclass sessions: Monday, May 15 – Friday, May 19
  • Presentation recital: Saturday, May 20
  • Recitals at locations in (the vicinity of) Zeist: Sunday, May 21

The Masterclass consists of a unique series of both public and private lessons on interpretation, poetry, language, cultural history and performance coaching.

Repertoire

 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, one of which is by Schubert
  • 3 songs in French
  • 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 master class, 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 master class is meant for (pre)professional singer-pianist duos. To apply, please send in the completed application form and upload the following:

  • individual photos of both singer and pianist (jpeg, pdf, tiff, eps / max 2 Mb each)
  • a biography of both singer and pianist (max 300 words, in English or German; pdf, word (doc, docx) / max 4 Mb each)
  • two videos featuring a performance of two songs (contrasting in character) by you and your duo partner in high quality of both picture and sound (mpeg, mpeg4, mp4, waf, avi, mov, wmv / max 32 Mb each)

You should send in your application before April 1, 2023. Applicants will receive notice before April 10, 2023, whether they have been accepted.

Tuition fee

The tuition fee for the master class is € 300,00 per musician and must be paid before May 1, 2023:
IBAN NL03 SNSB 0925 0975 43
Stichting Internationaal Lied Festival Zeist
Citing: Tuition fee master class
Your admission will automatically be cancelled if the tuition fee has yet to be received by May 1, 2023. 

Accommodation 

Participants will be accommodated with host families from Saturday, 14, until Sunday, May 21, 2023. Coffee, tea, and lunch will be provided on master class days. In addition, you will receive a passe-partout for all recitals during the festival.

Why choose our Masterclass?
Broad curriculum

Continuous development is essential for the careers of young singer-pianist duos. That’s why our master class 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 curriculum ranging from sessions on interpretation to performance coaching. Take that next step in your career and join us for a five-day learning experience that lasts you a lifetime.

Become a unique duo

The master class of the International Lied Festival Zeist 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 relatively large, educated, and eager but friendly public that visits the public sessions of the master class – often more than 50 people – is offered 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 master class so extraordinarily special.

Some Thoughts on the Heart of Art Song

View the online masterclass Some Thoughts on the Heart of Art Song, by Elly Ameling

masters

Elly Ameling

The Queen of the Lied, of course, needs no further introduction. After making her debut in 1953, Elly Ameling appeared on stage worldwide. Three years later, she won first prize at the International Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Elly Ameling became famous for her interpretations of French and German art song. Her performance in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony set the standard for years. She has long said farewell to the concert stage but, until today, remains an active tutor for new generations of singers during masterclasses worldwide.

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.

Dame Sarah Connolly

Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. Well-known for her interpretations of major operatic roles, Sarah Connolly is also a beloved singer of art song who is committed to promoting new music. She regularly appears on stages worldwide, including the Dutch National Opera and the Concertgebouw and has recorded many CDs. Most recently, she features on the soundtrack Fragments of a Prayer by Sir John Tavener for the film Children of Men.

Wolfram Rieger

During his studies, Wolfram Rieger soon developed a deep affection for the interpretation of art song. Even during his studies, he began teaching at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München until, in 1991, he started his own Lieder class for singers and pianists. In 1998 he became a Professor of a Lied class at Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. Wolfram Rieger regularly holds masterclasses in Europe and Japan. Rieger also has a busy dairy as a concert pianist, giving recitals in many outstanding venues and festivals worldwide. A prolific recording artist, he is well-represented on numerous awarded CDs.

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.

Malcolm Martineau

Recognised at the highest international level as one of the UK’s leading accompanists, Malcolm Martineau has performed worldwide alongside the world’s greatest singers, including Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson, Angelika Kirchschlager, Dame Felicity Lott, Ann Murray and Anne Sofie von Otter. He has appeared at the world’s principal venues. As a prolific recording artist, Martineau’s discography of over 100 CDs includes Award-winning recordings. Martineau is a Professor of piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music and an Honorary Doctor and International Fellow of Accompaniment at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He was made an OBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours for his services to music and young singers.

Cas Jönsthövel

Cas Jönsthövel is an expert at interpreting German texts in art song, including pronunciation. In addition to years of teaching experience, he built up a broad musical background and gained theatrical experience as a player. He pronounces German texts as if he were a native speaker but also knows a non-native speaker’s problems from his own experience. For many years Cas Jönsthövel was a vocal coach at the Voice department of the Codarts Conservatory in Rotterdam. And he was also affiliated with the Conservatory of Amsterdam.

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 song 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.

application form masterclass

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: mpeg, mpeg4, mp4, waf, avi, mov, wmv / max 64 mb.

4Please copy and paste a link to your YouTube video or upload your video directly. Having trouble uploading? Contact us at: masterclass@ilfz.nl

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