Music projects without borders
The artists
Songs and piano music of
Otto Klemperer
First performance in modern times, planned for the year 2021-2022 as a project of
"Academia for Music and Theater in Silesia" in the OP ENHEIM Foundation in Wroclaw
About the project
Otto Klemperer is one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. His life is closely connected to Silesia, however, as he was born in Breslau and carried out his first studies at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, the famous conservatory that Julius Stern from Wroclaw founded in Berlin. We know a lot about his activity as a conductor, but little about his compositional work. Lotte Klemperer's estate is in the Central Library of Zürich. In between there are many songs and some piano pieces. The association would like to try to perform and record these songs in collaboration with the pianist Katarzyna Wasiak and the soprano Ania Vegry. The two artists dedicate a large part of their artistic activity to the rejected, forgotten music of the Jewish artists of the 20th century.
From www.kuenste-im-exil.de:
Otto Klemperer (May 14, 1885 in Breslau, Germany, today Poland - July 6, 1973 in Zurich, Switzerland) was considered a modern conductor in the Weimar Republic: he was committed to works by Arnold Schönberg and Kurt Weill , among others. His numerous own compositions are largely unknown.
After emigrating from Germany, Otto Klemperer initially appeared as a guest conductor in the music metropolises of Europe. From 1933 to 1939 he was also chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. His wife still lived in Vienna with their two children. After the murder of the Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss in July 1934, Klemperer decided to turn his back on Europe entirely.
From the summer of 1935 he lived with his family near Los Angeles. Here he met Schönberg again, but the relationship between the two musicians was sometimes tense, because Schönberg had too high expectations of Klemperer that he could perform his works as head of the orchestra in Los Angeles.
In 1939 the conductor fell seriously ill with a brain tumor and withdrew from the concert stage in the following years. From 1946 he went on tour again - due to his illness he had lost his post with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Klemperer had been an American citizen since 1940, but since he directed concerts and opera productions at the Budapest Opera House from 1947 onwards, the US authorities assumed that he was sympathetic to Hungarian communism and made it difficult for him to leave for guest performances. In 1954, Klemperer decided not to return to the States and settled in Zurich.
In 1959 Klemperer became chief conductor of the New Philharmonia Orchestra in London, from 1964 for life, and in 1970 he took on both German and Israeli citizenship. Despite severe health and psychological restrictions, Klemperer conducted until 1971.
Project phases
The following songs and piano pieces have already been digitized and rehearsed. The works belong to Lotte Klemperer's estate.
"Adagio" für Klavier (1910)
"Allein" (Hermann Hesse) Lied,1913
"Aus dem Dunkel" (Anny v.Mendelssohn) Lied, 1908
"Begegnung" (Heinrich Heine) Lied, 1901
"Berceuse" für Klavier (1905)
"Gebet" für Stimme und Klavier
"Ich will mich im grünen Wald ergeht" (Heinrich Heine) Lied
"Psalm 23" für Sopran und Klavier (1951)
"Wiegenlied" für Stimme und Klavier
Further works are still being digitized and a selection
prepared for an evening and a sound recording.
Sponsors are wanted. Estimated costs
of the project: around € 5,000
Katarzyna wasiak
Katarzyna Wasiak comes from a Polish family of musicians and began her musical training in Wroclaw at the age of seven. In 2002, at the age of seventeen, she began her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (Prof. Oleg Maisenberg, Prof. Wolfgang Watzinger). In 2006 she continued her studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin with Prof. Jacques Rouvier and in 2009 she finished her artistic studies
Diploma. She then completed her training with an artistic master’s degree at the Hans Eisler University of Music in Berlin with Prof. Fabio Bidini. Katarzyna Wasiak has won numerous international piano competitions (including in Dallas, Vanves and Villa de Capdepera) and completed additional studies as a cultural manager. She was a scholarship holder of the Polish Culture and Prime Ministries and the Chopin Society. In addition, she won scholarships from the Crescendum Est-Polonia Foundation for several years in a row, as well as the Viadrina scholarship from the Rotary Club Germany. Wasiak participates in recordings for Polish, German and Austrian radio as well as for the record label DUX, Anagram, RecArt and eda records.
It is important to her to contribute to the reappraisal of historical backgrounds through consciously themed projects, as in the case of the Polish-Jewish cultural heritage of the 20th century. These aspects of her artistic work and activity as a cultural manager led - together with three other co-founders - to the initiation of the LIMBO KOLLEKTIV and to a cooperation with the Berlin Friends' Association for the rediscovery of Nazi persecuted composers musica reanimata.
She gives guest performances at renowned festivals such as the Carinthian Summer Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Arsonore Music Festival and plays with renowned orchestras such as the W arschau Radio Orchestra, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic of Ukraine and with well-known artists such as Michail Jurowski , Nikolai Diadiura, Jerzy Swoboda, Jan Krenz and Benjamin Schmid, Sayako Kusaka, Thomas Selditz, Felix Schwartz, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Agata Szymczewska, Clemens Hagen, Andreas Greger. www.katarzyna-wasiak.de
![Vegry-Ania-04[Thomas_Jauk].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/12c338_cafa93b406c547c6b6d645d613a1c65b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_599,h_400,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Vegry-Ania-04%5BThomas_Jauk%5D.jpg)
Ania Vegry
Ania Vegry, born in London as the daughter of a Polish couple of musicians, studied in Hanover with Christiane Iven and Charlotte Lehmann and in Madrid with Teresa Berganza. During her studies she became a permanent member of the ensemble of the Hanover State Opera, where she worked on numerous specialist roles. For her Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro she received a nomination for young singer of the year in the magazine Opernwelt. Ania Vegry sang and embodied central roles in the repertoire from baroque opera to music theater of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Guest engagements have taken her to the Deutsche Oper and the Komische Oper in Berlin, the Hamburg State Opera, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Theater Bremen, the Nationaltheater Mannheim, the Opéra Garnier in Paris, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Berliner Philharmonie and the Philharmonie am Gasteig in Munich. As a sought-after concert singer, she performs with conductors such as Alexander Shelley, Jonathan Darlington, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Simon Halsey, Christopher Hogwood, Ira Levin, Enrique Mazzola, Gregor Bühl, Marc Albrecht, Joana Mallwitz, Ivan Repusic and Helmuth Rilling. She regularly gives recitals and gives concerts with renowned European orchestras and specialized ensembles for old and new music. Her chamber music partners include internationally renowned musicians such as Tabea Zimmermann, Andreas Ottensamer, Albrecht Mayer, Sharon Kam, Markus Becker, Rudolf Buchbinder, Maxim Vengerov, Andrej Bielow, Nicholas Rimmer and Jan-Philip Schulze. She is a regular guest at international festivals.
Ania Vegry has repeatedly recorded opera arias and song cycles for broadcasters (NDR, MDR, SWR, BR). She took the Hanoverian production of Gassmann's L ́Opera Seria as an opportunity to sift through his oeuvre and to have previously unpublished concert and opera arias published and to record with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under the direction of David Stern for the CPO label. www.aniavegry.com
