Students who attended West Virginia University’s first Bavarian Summer Voice and Piano Collaborative Workshop, held in Rosenheim, Germany, in June are already being offered performance opportunities in Europe.

This week-long program, held at the Musikschule Rosenheim and developed by WVU faculty member Lucy Mauro and guest artist-in-residence Donald George, is for advanced piano and voice students who want to study art song and opera, experience German culture and learn about the German theater system.

Three pianists and six singers were selected for the 2011 workshop, including recent WVU graduate Min Sue Kim, who received a doctorate in voice in May, and current music students Sora Lee, who is studying for a master’s degree in collaborative piano, and Zhiwei “Vivi” Zheng, who is studying for a doctorate in piano.

Soprano Mary Beth Withers, who entered the doctoral program in voice at WVU this fall, also participated.

Other students came from the State University of New York at Potsdam, China and New York, as well as Germany’s Conservatory in Munich, Bavarian Theater Academy and the Music School in Rosenheim.

“The program is already giving students opportunities in Europe,” Mauro said.

“Pianist Jessica Westerman from The Crane School of Music went back to Europe in July, where she was offered a full scholarship at the Tyrolean Opera Program in Austria for three weeks based on her work at our workshop.

“Also, the opera festival at Bad Nauheim is interested in Vivi Zheng for an accompanist next year, as well as one of the singers from Crane, and we are helping Min Sue Kim with auditions for opera companies in Germany this fall.

“It was a marvelous week of music, study and German culture,” she said.

Students visited the Steinway House in Munich where they toured, played pianos and auditioned for the festival in Bad Nauheim.

“We also went to Gut Immling for a dress rehearsal of “Don Giovanni,” to the G�rtnerplatz Theater in Munich for a performance of “La Traviata,” and to the Chiemsee to tour the beautiful castle of King Ludwig,” she said.

The students had music lessons, German lessons and master classes with Mauro and George as well as with noted American soprano Lynda Kemeny, who was the guest artist for the workshop.

Mauro and George perform nationally and internationally in their duo, Duodrama, presenting recitals, workshops and master classes and specializing in such areas as the 19th-century German melodrama and the art of collaborative performance.

Mauro is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of the John Hopkins University, from which she received bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees and where she studied with Ann Schein and Julio Esteban.

George is an internationally known opera singer and an established lyric tenor in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe. He has sung at the Paris Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera of Brussels, the Kennedy Center and the State Operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna.

-WVU-

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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