Details

Start Date:
2022-12-21
Time:
20:00 - 22:00

Venue

ARTE Music Academy

Αναστάσιος Λεβέντης, 34-36, street 1097 Nicosia

 

About this event

“Come over to Schober’s today, and I will sing you a cycle of horrifying songs. I am anxious to know what you will say about them. They have cost me more effort than any of my other songs.”

This was Schubert’s invitation to the first reading of his final masterpiece: Winterreise. The twenty-four poems that make up Winterreise were originally published in 1824 in a collection titled Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten/Poems from the left-behind papers of a traveling horn-player by Wilhelm Müller. The poems trace the eb and flow in a flood of grief after the end of love.

In Schubert’s hands, the narrator’s collapsing internal world and the harsh external pressures of winter intermingle, and the story’s sadness takes on an existential universal scope. For each performer and listener, the meaning of Winterreise is different. Schubert has given us twenty-four exquisite songs that transform the ice of winter into diamonds of music, and has strung them as a necklace, in a sequence that allows interpreters to refract Schubert’s light each in their own way.

Andrew Robert Munn was born in California in 1986 and pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan. From 2006 to 2014 he was a leading organizer for environmental causes in the United States. Seeking truth in music, he completed his studies at the Bard College Conservatory and The Juilliard School under soprano Dawn Upshaw and baritone Sanford Sylvan. He has been a fellow of the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Tanglewood Music Center. After completing his studies, Andrew moved to Europe, where he has performed leading roles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Salzburg State Opera, Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, among other venues. With the pianist Rami Sarieddine, he co-founded Chimera, as a hub for the creation and interpretation of chamber music. The duo has presented recitals in Berlin, Paris, Abu Dhabi, Athens, and Nicosia.

Pianist Rami Sarieddine is recognized around the world as a musician of remarkable versatility. His career encompasses performances in Asia, Europe, Middle East and North America. Equally at home as a soloist, a collaborator with some excellent singers and instrumentalists, or a vocal and chamber music coach, his approach to music making has been praised by both colleagues and the public alike. Born on the island of Cyprus, Dr Sarieddine went on to receive piano performance qualifications by the following institutions: the Royal Academy of Music in London (BMus, MMus, LRAM), the New England Conservatory in Boston (Graduate Diploma) and the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles (Doctor of Musical Arts) under the tutelage of Patsy Toh, Gabriel Chodos and John Perry respectively. He has held faculty positions at the British School Al Khubairat in Abu Dhabi and the Central Conservatory Prep School in Beijing. He currently serves on the faculty of ARTE Music Academy and as a vocal coach at the Berlin Opera Academy.