Welcome
Our organization, established 30 years ago, has a unique and unifying mission. We showcase gifted young talent — musicians, painters, writers and filmmakers — from the German-speaking world and introduce them to the New York cultural community.
In sponsoring their performances here, the Forum gives these young people a US debut and a helping hand in their studies and careers. And the organization offers GF members the opportunity to see and support exceptionally talented Europeans who bridge the “Atlantic divide” through their art.
The German Forum hosts four events per year, three that are open to the public and one exclusively for members. Please take the time to learn more about the German Forum. We hope to see you at our next event.
Gesänge aus der Ferne: the “Songs from Afar” Series
Final Concert
A Message to our Members and Friends
Dear Members & Friends,
We are happy to offer our members, supporters and friends a string of virtual concerts to lift your spirits during the current pandemic.
From February to June 2021, you will receive a link to a virtual recital once a month that will allow you to listen – at your leisure – to new and original music commissioned by the German Forum and never before performed anywhere.
Each of these five works was composed by a young composer and is performed by some of the finest musicians who have performed at the German Forum in the past.
The musicians, most with a connection to German-speaking Europe, will not only perform – premiere, to be precise – the music, but will also moderate and introduce the programs.
We are extremely proud that Ries & Erler, a leading music publisher located in Berlin, Germany will publish these five compositions, with full credit to the German Forum.
Enjoy these programs especially curated for the German Forum community!
Please feel free to share your feedback.
Musically yours,
Barbara Heming, President
Babette Hierholzer, Artistic Director
Guy A. Reiss, Chairman
The July 2021 Program
I. SARAH GIBSON: I prefer living in Color (2017)
Jacob Schafer, violin
Sam Pedersen, viola
Sonia Mantell, cello
Ben Quarles, bass clarinet
Marika Yasuda, piano
Matthew Mitchener, percussionII. HUGO WOLF: 3 Mörike-Lieder
Auf einer Wanderung
Peregrina II
Storchenbotschaft
Reiko Uchida, pianistIII. GIBSON: tiny tangled world (2018)
Aperture Duo (Adrianne Pope, violin & Linnea Powell, viola)IV. SAMUEL BARBER: Dover Beach
Jessica Lee & Yun-Ting Lee, violins
Wesley Collins, viola
Dane Johansen, celloV: GIBSON: Sure baby, mañana (2016)
Aperture Duo (Adrianne Pope, violin & Linnea Powell, viola)
L.A. Signal Lab (Noah Meites, trumpet; Hitomi Oba, tenor saxophone; Nick DePinna, trombone)
HOCKET (Sarah Gibson & Thomas Kotcheff, piano)VI: ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD: Tanzlied des Pierrot (from Die tote Stadt)
Odyssey Opera
Gil Rose, conductorVII: GIBSON: to the world
Thomas Meglioranza, baritone & tongue drum
View the concert by clicking on the video playlist below:
The July 2021 Premiere
Composed by Sarah Gibson
to the world
Thomas Meglioranza, baritone & tongue drum
View the premiere here:
About the Artists
Sarah Gibson
Sarah Gibson is a Los Angeles based composer and pianist whose works draw on her breadth of experience as a collaborative performer with a deep interest in the creative process across various artistic mediums. She has received honors and recognitions such as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Sound Investment composer, American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, Victor Herbert ASCAP award, and a Chamber Music America Grant. She has received commissions from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center, Arco Collaborative, Aspen Summer Music Festival & School, and Seattle Symphony, among others.
Gibson’s music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Jennifer Koh, Departure Duo, HOCKET, and at various venues across the United States and in Europe. As a pianist, Sarah has performed with many of these ensembles as well as with wild Up, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Atlanta Symphony where she debuted under the direction of Donald Runnicles in 2005.
Sarah is co-founder of the new music piano duo, HOCKET, which has been lauded as “brilliant” by the LA Times’ Mark Swed, and is a core artist for the imitable Los Angeles Series, Piano Spheres. HOCKET has held residences at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and received grants from the Earle Brown Music Foundation and the Presser Foundation. HOCKET has performed at such festivals as the MATA Festival, the L.A. Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight, Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab, and the Other Minds Festival.
Sarah received degrees in Piano and Composition from Indiana University and the University of Southern California. Alongside Artistic Director Andrew Norman, she is the Lead-Teaching Artist for the esteemed Nancy and Barry Sanders Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellowship Program. Sarah is Assistant Teaching Professor in Composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the College of Creative Studies and Music Department where she is the director of the Ensemble for Contemporary Music. Learn more about Sarah here!
Thomas Meglioranza
American baritone Thomas Meglioranza was a winner of the Walter W. Naumburg, Concert Artists Guild, Franz Schubert/Music of Modernity, and Joy In Singing competitions.
Highlights from recent seasons include an all-Hugo Wolf recital at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as role of Lord Henry in Lowell Liebermann’s The Picture of Dorian Gray with Odyssey Opera, and Saint John in Louis Karchin’s Jane Eyre with the Center for Contemporary Opera. He also sang Handel’s Messiah at Saint Thomas Church in New York City, and debuted with Ars Lyrica Houston singing J.C.F. Bach’s solo cantata, Pygmalion. Last season, he sang the role of Wreck in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with the Seattle Symphony, Bach’s solo bass cantatas with Lyra Baroque in Minneapolis and performances of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with Reiko Uchida and Winterreise with fortepianist David Breitman.
Described in The New Yorker as an “immaculate and inventive recitalist”, his Songs from the WWI Era program was named one of the “Top Ten Best Classical Performances of the Year” in the Philadelphia Inquirer. His discography includes the Schubert cycles and assorted lieder, and French mélodies with pianist Reiko Uchida, songs of Virgil Thomson with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Bach cantatas with the Taverner Consort.
He has been an oratorio and pops soloist with many of America’s leading orchestras and has also sung Copland’s Old American Songs with the National Symphony, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, John Harbison’s Fifth Symphony with the Boston Symphony, Milton Babbitt’s Two Sonnets with the MET Chamber Ensemble, Roberto Sierra’s Missa Latina with the Houston Symphony, and Bach cantatas with Les Violons du Roy and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He has also appeared with many period instrument ensembles, including the American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque, Portland Baroque, the New York Collegium, the Waverly Consort, and Apollo’s Fire.
His operatic roles include Fritz in Die tote Stadt, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva, as well as Chou Enlai in Nixon in China, Prior Walter in Eötvös Peter’s Angels in America, and Oedipus in Ruth Schönthal’s Jocasta. He also regularly performs with the Mark Morris Dance Group, including the role of Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas.
A native New Yorker, Meglioranza graduated from Grinnell College and the Eastman School of Music. His non-musical interests include cooking and fungi. Learn more about Thomas here!
Gesänge aus der Ferne: the “Songs from Afar” Series
May 2021
A Message to our Members and Friends
Dear Members & Friends,
We are happy to offer our members, supporters and friends a string of virtual concerts to lift your spirits during the current pandemic.
From February to June 2021, you will receive a link to a virtual recital once a month that will allow you to listen – at your leisure – to new and original music commissioned by the German Forum and never before performed anywhere.
Each of these five works was composed by a young composer and is performed by some of the finest musicians who have performed at the German Forum in the past.
The musicians, most with a connection to German-speaking Europe, will not only perform – premiere, to be precise – the music, but will also moderate and introduce the programs.
We are extremely proud that Ries & Erler, a leading music publisher located in Berlin, Germany will publish these five compositions, with full credit to the German Forum.
Enjoy these programs especially curated for the German Forum community!
Please feel free to share your feedback.
Musically yours,
Barbara Heming, President
Babette Hierholzer, Artistic Director
Guy A. Reiss, Chairman
The May 2021 Premiere:
Composed by Thilo Thomas Krigar
Sonnets 18 and 19 by William Shakespeare, for Soprano and Piano
Shall I compare?
Devouring Time
Soprano: Corinna Ruba
Piano: Julia Kadel
The Artists
Corinna Ruba
Julia Kadel
Thilo Thomas Krigar
Gesänge aus der Ferne: the “Songs from Afar” Series
April 2021
A Message to our Members and Friends
Dear Members & Friends,
We are happy to offer our members, supporters and friends a string of virtual concerts to lift your spirits during the current pandemic.
From February to June 2021, you will receive a link to a virtual recital once a month that will allow you to listen – at your leisure – to new and original music commissioned by the German Forum and never before performed anywhere.
Each of these five works was composed by a young composer and is performed by some of the finest musicians who have performed at the German Forum in the past.
The musicians, most with a connection to German-speaking Europe, will not only perform – premiere, to be precise – the music, but will also moderate and introduce the programs.
We are extremely proud that Ries & Erler, a leading music publisher located in Berlin, Germany will publish these five compositions, with full credit to the German Forum.
Enjoy these programs especially curated for the German Forum community!
Please feel free to share your feedback.
Musically yours,
Barbara Heming, President
Babette Hierholzer, Artistic Director
Guy A. Reiss, Chairman
The April 2021 Premiere:
Composed by Margarete Huber
GLÄNZENDE AUGEN. JUNGES TRÄUMEN. – Shining eyes. Young dreaming. (2021)
A concert aria for lyric coloratura soprano and piano
Text: Alfred Döblin, from „Jagende Rosse“ (Hunting horses) (1900)
Soprano: Christine Reber
Piano: Robert Bärwald
The Artists
Christine Reber
Margarete Huber
Robert Bärwald
The April 2021 Concert
The April 2021 Program
Works by composer Margarete Huber:
GLÄNZENDE AUGEN. JUNGES TRÄUMEN. – Shining eyes. Young dreaming. (2021)
A concert aria for lyric coloratura soprano and piano
Text: Alfred Döblin, from „Jagende Rosse“ (Hunting horses) (1900)
Soprano: Christine Reber
Piano: Robert Bärwald
***
KURZE BLITZE, DONNER, SONNE, WIND UND REGEN – Short lightning, thunder, sun, wind and rain (2020)
A cycle of 12 miniatures for piano with preparations
Piano: Fidan Aghayeva-Edler
***
AN EVENING IN SPRINGTIME (2021)
for soprano and piano
Soprano & piano: Margarete Huber
***
SCHATTENLOS – Shadowless (2017) (Excerpts)
Chamber opera for baritone, bass-baritone, piano, and multi-channel addition
(with harpsichord, strings, recorders, zither, percussion objects, electronics, synthesizer, and breath sounds),
Composition & Tape: Margarete Huber
Libretto: Steffen Thiemann, with excerpts from Adalbert von Chamisso´s „ Peter Schlemihl’s wondrous story“ and Poems
Musical direction/piano: Insa Bernds
Idea & direction: Birgit Grimm
Light & space: Felix Grimm
With: Nicolás Lartaun & Benoit Pitre (Baritone/Bass-Baritone)
***
A song by Bruno Droste:
TAKING A TRIP WITH YOU FINAL (1955)
Soprano: Christine Reber
with Musicians of the SWR Big Band
*****
THE ARTISTS
Margarete Huber – composer, pianist, soprano
Christine Reber – soprano
Robert Bärwald – pianist
Fidan Aghayeva-Edler – pianist
Insa Bernds – pianist
Nicolás Lartaun – baritone
Benoit Pitre – bass-baritone
SWR Big Band
Other Featured Artists
Fidan Aghayeva-Edler
Insa Bernds
Benoit Pitre, photo by Saskia Pavek
Nicolás Lartaun, photo by Marjiola Rukaj
