URSULA LANGMAYR & RUSSELL RYAN | LIED: THE ART OF SONG
MAY 26 | 07:30 PM
The Austrian Cultural Forum presented a concert by the talented Austrian soprano Ursula Langmayr whose performance was part of the ACFNY’s ongoing concert series Lied: The Art of Song.
Accompanied by American pianist Russell Ryan, Langmayr performed Lieder by Eder, Kropfreiter, and Waldek, as well as selections from the works of Gustav Mahler to mark the 2011 centennial of the composer’s death.
The choice of works performed reflected two underlying interconnected themes: that of the relationship between teacher and student on one hand, and the theme of nature and the animal kingdom on the other. The late Augustinus Franz Kropfreiter and composer Gunter Waldek were both students of Austrian composer and conductor Helmut Eder.
Ursula Langmayr (soprano) studied at the Mozarteum-University in Salzburg, where she was trained by Ingrid Janser-Mayr and Wolfgang Holzmayr. Since then, her musical talents have been in high demand.
A flexible and versatile artist, Langmayr has performed all over the world in numerous national and international festivals, including Wien Modern, Wiener Festwochen, Salzburger Festspiele, Berlin Modern and Warsaw Autumn, and has worked alongside popular artists such as Dennis Russel Davies, Silvian Cambreling, Emilio Pomàrico, Beat Furrer, Russel Ryan, Riccardo Chailly, Johannes Kalitzke, Jonathan Nott, as well as many others. Langmayr is an active opera singer, and has performed in several Mozart-operas, as well as in the Austrian premiere of Orfeo by Philip Glass as Euridice and the world premiere of Begehren by Beat Furrer.
She has sung alongside famous orchestras and conductors, performing in pieces such as Bach’s St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion and B-minor mass, Haydn’s Creation, Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem, Mozart’s C-minor Mass and many masses by Bruckner, Haydn and Schubert.
Langmayr has been described as both “powerful and pure” by the Kleine Zeitung, and Der Standard writes that “Ursula Langmayr shines as an equally powerful-voiced soprano with very stable intonation.”
Russell Ryan (piano) is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory and attended master classes at the Juilliard School. He also studied at Vienna's University for Music and the Performing Arts with Professor Georg Ebert, where he graduated with honors in piano chamber music.
He has instructed and accompanied master classes in Lieder, chamber music, opera and musical theatre. As a soloist, accompanist and chamber musician, he has frequently appeared in Europe, Israel, Japan, and the US, and he was both soloist and accompanist at the San Francisco Bach Festival for four consecutive seasons.
Ryan has also performed in many radio and television productions in Austria, Scandinavia, Japan, and the US.
On May 29, 2011, Zachary Woolfe reviewed the concert at the Austrian Cultural Forum for The New York Times:
"In a revealing recital Thursday evening at the Austrian Cultural Forum the soprano Ursula Langmayr sang two sets of Mahler songs about nature and beasts, using them to frame pieces on the same themes by three more recent, less famous Austrian composers. (...) Hers is a penetrating voice with a flinty core, but she can pull it back to a frightening intimacy, as she did in the haunted repetitions of “Mond” (“Moon”) that open the fourth part of Mr. Waldek’s work. Nothing was mannered or pretentious; the texts came through with utter naturalness.
Ms. Langmayr was accompanied by the excellent pianist Russell Ryan. One of the many examples of his sensitivity was his perfect synchronization with Ms. Langmayr as she slowed down, ever so slightly, on the aching line “Welcome, my darling boy, you have stood out there so long” in Mahler’s “Wo die Sschönen Trompeten Blasen” (“Where the Beaufitul Trumpets Sound”)."
Read the full New York Times Review here.
Audio recordings from the event:
Gustav Mahler: Frühlingsmorgen
Gustav Mahler: Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald
Photos of the event (click to enlarge):
