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Stephanie Gurga
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The prolific German art song composer Franz Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise will be performed by tenor Florian Cramer in a seldom Lieder concert in the Enoch Sontonga Hall at Unisa on Sunday 8 September at 16:00.
American-German pianist Stephanie Gurga will accompany him. She will also perform one solo piece by Schubert: Moments Musicaux, Op 94 no 4.
Both Cramer and Gurga participated in last week’s performance at Unisa of the vocal ensemble Fons Partita’s concert of baroque music. Cramer was the conductor while Ms Gurga played the baroque organ.
Schubert used 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller as text for the song cycle Winterreise.
Literary scholar Cecilia Baumann describes the work as "a simple story of a rejected lover who leaves the town where his love resides and sets out in winter on an aimless journey."
Tenor and conductor Florian Cramer studied conducting with Klaus Hövelmann and Hans Michael Beuerle at the Music University Freiburg and singing with Reginaldo Pinheiro.
His repertoire spans from Monteverdi and Schütz through Mozart and Mendelssohn up to the twentieth century (Martin, Kagel, Riehm) but with emphasis on the evangelist and aria literature of Bach.
In 2011, Cramer toured Austria, Switzerland and Germany with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, performing the St Johns Passion of Bach. Accompanied by Stephanie Gurga, he performed Lieder concerts with Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Schubert’s Schöne Müllerin, amongst others. He has performed in Germany as well as in Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea.
He has worked with choirs such as the Camerata Vocale Freiburg and the Rheinische Kantorei. Since 2003, he conducts the Evangelische Studentenkantorei Freiburg, and since 2010, Florian Cramer is artistic director of the New Basel Chamber Choir as successor of Prof. Martin Schmidt. He teaches singing at the Musikhochschule Freiburg and on courses such as the Staufener Musikwoche, the Church Music Educational Centre Schlüchtern, and at master classes in Lettland.
American pianist and harpsichordist Stephanie Gurga completed her studies in piano and organ at DePauw University, Indiana, and at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France, before specialising in performance practice on historical keyboards. She went on to complete a "Kunsterlische Ausbildung" in harpsichord performance, as well as a master's degree in fortepiano performance, at the Musikhochschule Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
Featured internationally as soloist, recitalist, accompanist, and chamber musician on harpsichord, fortepiano, and the modern piano, she is also on staff as accompanist at the Haute Ecole de Musique Vaud Valais Fribourg, in Lausanne and Sion, Switzerland, since 2010.
The concert is supported by the Rupert Music Foundation. Tickets for the concert are sold only at the door at R90 for adults and R70 for students and pensioners.
For further information contact Alet Joubert at the Unisa Music Foundation, Tel: 012 429 3336/3311 or Cell: 084 763 4079. www.unisa.ac.za/musicfoundation