Walter Fink (born 16 August 1930) is a German retired executive and a patron of Contemporary music. He is mostly known for being a founding member, Executive Committee member and sponsor of the Rheingau Musik Festival.

Biography[link]

Walter Fink received piano instructions from age seven. In Frankfurt he took organ lessons with Helmut Walcha and learned conducting with Kurt Thomas.^[1]

Walter Fink joined the company of his father in 1930 and expanded it.^[1] He was Managing director of the Firmengruppe Fink (FINK Schuhe + Sport GmbH) in Wiesbaden until his retirement in 2002.^[2]

He founded a church choir at the Christuskirche in Wiesbaden and served there for 25 years as organist.^[1]

In 1987 he was one of the founding members of the Rheingau Musik Festival, together with Michael Herrmann, Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg, Michael Bolenius, Hans-Clemens Lucht, Ulrich Rosin and Claus Wisser.^[3] He has been on the board of the Rheingau Musik Festival Förderverein, an association to support the festival.^[4] He has been on the Jury of the Rheingau Musikpreis, together with Rolf Beck, (Artistic Director of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival), Leo-Karl Gerhartz (retired Music Programme Director of the state broadcast Hessischer Rundfunk and Peter Hanser-Strecker (Board Chairperson, Schott Music).^[5][6]

Walter Fink received the Bundesverdienstkreuz in 2007. ^[7] He is Grand Officier of the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs.^[8] On 19 October 2011 the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe granted him an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy.^[9]

Engagement for contemporary music[link]

Fink's interest in contemporary music was instilled in 1947 by Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler.^[1] He supported the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. He was interested in premieres and a personal friend of composers, Wolfgang Rihm was his Best man. Several composers dedicated music to him, such as Volker David Kirchner his clarinet quartet Exil in 1995 and Toshio Hosokawa Temple Bells Voice from the last movement of his oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima in 2001.^[2]

For the Rheingau Musik Festival he initiated in 1990 the annual Komponistenporträt, the presentation of a living composer and his or her work, music of György Ligeti, Mauricio Kagel, Volker David Kirchner, Wilhelm Killmayer, Wolfgang Rihm, Dieter Schnebel, Aribert Reimann, Helmut Lachenmann, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, Steve Reich, Sofia Gubaidulina, György Kurtág, Arvo Pärt, Henri Dutilleux, Heinz Holliger, Toshio Hosokawa, Rodion Shchedrin, Kaija Saariaho and Hans Zender. For 2012, he invited Péter Eötvös. He has been the personal contact to the composers and a sponsor of the concert series.

His 80th birthday was celebrated in a concert of the Rheingau Musik Festival on 16 August 2010, in Schloss Johannisberg with compositions of five composers including three premieres, works of Kirchner, Rihm, Hosokawa, Lachenmann and Jörg Widmann for clarinet, percussion, piano and saxophone.^[10][11] The title of Hosokawa's composition for soprano saxophone and piano, percussion ad libitum, is Für Walter.

Walter-Fink-Award[link]

Walter Fink created in collaboration with the Institut für Musik und Akustik of the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe the Walter-Fink-Award for electroacoustic music, dance and media.^[12] The prize (Euro 10,000,) was awarded for the first time in 2009 to rosalie, Humberto Teixeira and Matthias Ockert.^[13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Komponisten ehren Mäzen Walter Fink (in German), Hessischer Rundfunk, 13 August 2010 (in German)
• Dank für das tiefe Hören Volker Milch in Wiesbadener Tagblatt, 18 August 2010 (in German)
• Stille, Geräusch und Klang Frankfurter Neue Presse, 18 August 2010 (in German)

Neil Shicoff (born June 2, 1949) is an American Jewish opera singer and cantor known for his lyric tenor singing and his dramatic, emotional acting.

Beginnings[link]

Neil Shicoff was born in Brooklyn, New York. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music, with his father, the hazzan Sidney Shicoff and others, including Franco Corelli in the early 1980s. He sang in small theatres in New York before music school, including a Don Jose in Bizet's Carmen at Amato Opera and small roles at Juilliard, and was an apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 1973. His professional debut as a tenor lead in a big opera house was in the title role in Verdi's Ernani, conducted by James Levine in Cincinnati in 1975.

In 1976, Shicoff made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi conducted by Levine. Shicoff was then engaged by the Met to sing the tenor leads in Rigoletto, La Bohème, Der Rosenkavalier, and Werther, which was to become one of his signature roles. He soon sang in the major opera houses in the U.S. and Europe, winning great notices and recording some of his roles. Shicoff experienced severe stage fright well into his career, which caused him to cancel a number of performances. He was known to be a perfectionist, carefully researching and preparing each role, both dramatically and vocally.

In 1978, Shicoff married fellow Juilliard graduate, lyric soprano Judith Haddon. After the death of his mother in 1984, Shicoff suffered emotional problems, technical vocal difficulties and increasing performance anxiety. He cancelled numerous performances, and by the end of the 1980s he had developed a reputation for unreliability.

Rebuilding his career[link]

Shicoff continued singing at the Met for two years, but in 1991, he left America, fleeing the stresses and headlines engendered by his ongoing divorce proceeding and custody battle concerning his daughter, into a self-described European exile. He lived for three years in Berlin, then Zürich, performing throughout Europe (with a handful appearances in Buenos Aires), and he slowly rebuilt his reputation for reliability. He appeared at Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Paris Opera, Covent Garden, Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Bavarian State Opera, Zurich Opera House and numerous other opera houses and concert halls throughout Europe.

By 1997, Shicoff and Haddon finally reached a divorce settlement. Their final decree left Shicoff free to marry soprano Dawn Kotoski, with whom he had lived since 1990, and to renew his relationship with his daughter, Aliza. Shicoff also returned to the Met, as Lensky in Eugene Onegin, to good notices. He has now been heard in nearly 200 performances of 20 roles at the Met.

Due to his personal friendship with the Austrian Federal Chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, Shicoff was widely expected to follow Ioan Holender as director of the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) in 2010. In a surprise decision and in defiance of Gusenbauer's publicly stated wish, Austrian Culture Minister Claudia Schmidt, however, appointed Dominique Meyer as director and Franz Welser-Möst as musical director on June 6, 2007.

Shicoff's most famous roles (besides Werther), include the title roles in Tales of Hoffman and Peter Grimes and Lensky in Eugene Onegin and Eleazar in ″La Juive", as well as for a number of the Romantic French and Italian lyric and spinto tenor roles. In addition to his opera performances, he has also sung concerts with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado, the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Edo de Waart, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa, among others, and at many festivals.

Recent performances[link]

In recent seasons, Shicoff sang the roles of Cavaradossi in Tosca and Hoffmann at La Scala and Paris’ Opéra Bastille; Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut; Don José in Carmen at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Zurich Opera House and Eleazar in Halévy's La Juive at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, with Wiener Staatsoper and the Zurich Opera House, Peter Grimes at the Teatro Regio di Torino. He has sung also Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, the title role in Idomeneo, and Rodolfo in La bohème at the Wiener Staatsoper; Luisa Miller (Rodolfo) at the Met; Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra at Covent Garden and in Paris; Hermann in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame'; and Manrico, Cavaradossi and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Zurich Opera House, among others. A regular at Wiener Staatsoper (where he attained the rank of Kammersänger and the rarely-awarded honorary lifetime membership in the company) he continues to triumph mostly in the verismo repertoire, but in February 2011 he repeated his huge success in the role of Captain Vere in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd which he sang in the company premiere of the opera in 2002.

Along with his Vienna State Opera honors, he has also received the Golden Austrian Cross of Honor in the fields of Science and Art, the Golden Decoration for Services to the City of Vienna and France's Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier dans L'Ordre des Arts e des Lettres). He is a Grammy nominated artist and most recently, in April 2011, he was awarded the prestigious Russian Golden Mask Award as "Best Male Opera Performer".

Recordings[link]

• Bizet: Carmen, Philips 422 366-2, Grand Auditorium de Radio France, Paris, 13-22 Jul 1988; Opéra-Comique version; Carmen: Jessye Norman; Micaëla: Mirella Freni; Don José: Neil Shicoff; Escamillo: Simon Estes; Orchestre National de France et Choeurs de Radio France; Conductor: Seiji Ozawa

• Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor, Teldec 0630-13803-2, St. Augustine's Church, London, September 1991; Lord Enrico Ashton: Alexandru Agache; Lucia: Edita Gruberova; Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood: Neil Shicoff; Lord Arturo Bucklaw: Bernard Lombardo; Raimondo Bidebent: Alastair Miles; Alisa: Diana Montague; London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Singers; Conductor: Richard Bonynge

• Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann, EMI CDS 7 49641, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Jun-Jul 1988; Fritz Oeser edition; Hoffmann: Neil Shicoff; Nicklausse/La Muse: Ann Murray; Olympia: Luciana Serra; Antonia: Rosalind Plowright; Giulietta: Jessye Norman; Lindorf/Coppélius/Miracle/Dapertutto: José van Dam; Symphonic Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National du Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels; Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling

• Puccini: The Puccini Album: Great scenes from Tosca and Manon Lescaut, Philips 456 586-2, Teatro Comunale, Florence, Nov 1997; Floria Tosca: Galina Gorchakova; Mario Cavaradossi: Neil Shicoff; Il Sagrestano: Alessandro Calamai; Manon Lescaut: Galina Gorchakova; Renato Des Grieux: Neil Shicoff; Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Conductor: Seiji Ozawa

• Puccini: Il tabarro, EMI CD 5 56587 2 - disc 1, Lyndhurst Hall, Air Studios, Hampstead, London, Jul 1997; Michele: Carlo Guelfi; Giorgetta: Maria Guleghina; Luigi: Neil Shicoff; London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices; Conductor: Antonio Pappano

• Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Philips 438 235-2, Paris, Oct 1992; Larina: Sarah Walker; Tatiana: Nuccia Focile; Olga: Olga Borodina; Filipyevna: Irina Arkhipova; Eugene Onegin: Dmitri Hvorostovsky; Lensky: Neil Shicoff; Prince Gremin: Alexander Anisimov; St. Petersburg Chamber Choir and Orchestre de Paris; Conductor: Semyon Bychkov

• Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Deutsche Grammophon 423959-2, Lukaskirche, Dresden, Jun 1987; Larina: Rosemarie Lang; Tatiana: Mirella Freni; Olga: Anne Sophie von Otter; Filipyevna: Ruthild Engert; Eugene Onegin: Thomas Allen; Lensky: Neil Shicoff; Prince Gremin: Paata Burchuladze; Staatskapelle Dresden and Rundfunkchor Leipzig; Conductor: James Levine

• Verdi: Aroldo, Philips 462 512-2; Aroldo: Neil Shicoff; Mina: Carol Vaness; Egberto: Anthony Michaels-Moore; Briano: Roberto Scandiuzzi; Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Conductor: Fabio Luisi

• Verdi: Attila, EMI CDS749952-2, Albanella, Milan, Jun-Jul 1989; Attila: Samuel Ramey; Odabella: Cheryl Studer; Foresto: Neil Shicoff; Ezio: Giorgio Zancanaro; Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala; Conductor: Riccardo Muti

• Verdi: Macbeth, Philips 412 133-2, Berlin, Nov-Dec 1983; Lady Macbeth: Mara Zampieri; Macbeth: Renato Bruson; Banco: Robert Lloyd; Dama: Lucia Aliberti; Macduff: Neil Shicoff; Chorus and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Conductor: Giuseppe Sinopoli

• Verdi: Rigoletto, Philips 412 592-2 -or- 462 158-2, Rome, Sep 1984; Il Duca di Mantova: Neil Shicoff; Rigoletto: Renato Bruson; Gilda: Edita Gruberova; Sparafucile: Robert Lloyd; Maddalena: Brigitte Fassbaender; Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; Conductor: Giuseppe Sinopoli

• Verdi: La traviata, Teldec 9031-76348-2, Abbey Road Studios, London, Feb 1992; Violetta Valéry: Edita Gruberova; Flora Bervoix: Patricia Spence; Annina: Monica Bacelli; Alfredo Germont: Neil Shicoff; Giorgio Germont: Giorgio Zancanaro; London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Singers; Conductor: Carlo Rizzi

Videography[link]

• Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Metropolitan Opera Video; Metropolitan Opera, 8 Jan 1988 | Telecast: 2 Mar 1988; Olympia: Gwendolyn Bradley; Antonia: Roberta Alexander; Giulietta: Tatiana Troyanos; Nicklausse/La Muse: Susan Quittmeyer; Hoffmann: Neil Shicoff; Lindorf/Coppélius/Miracle/Dapertutto: James Morris; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Conductor: Charles Dutoit

• Puccini: La Bohème, National Video Corporation 4509-99222-3 -or- Castle Vision CVI 2014; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1982; Mimì: Ileana Cotrubas; Rodolfo: Neil Shicoff; Marcello: Thomas Allen; Musetta: Marilyn Zschau; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and Royal Opera Chorus; Conductor: Lamberto Gardelli

• Verdi: La traviata, National Video Corporation 4509-92409-3/Teldec Video; Gran Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Dec 1992; Violetta Valéry: Edita Gruberova; Flora Bervoix: Mariana Pentcheva; Annina: Antonella Trevisan; Alfredo Germont: Neil Shicoff; Giorgio Germont: Giorgio Zancanaro; Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro La Fenice; Conductor: Carlo Rizzi

• Halévy: La juive, Deutsche Grammophon DVD 00440 073 4001; Vienna State Opera 15 May 2003; Neil Shicoff (Eléazar), Krassimira Stoyanova (Rachel), Simina Ivan (Euxodie), Jianyi Zhang (Léopold), Walter Fink (Cardinal Brogni) - Chor und Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, cond. Vjekoslav Šutej

References[link]

External links[link]

• Neil Shicoff's website
• Neil Shicoff performing the role of Rudolfo in Puccini's La Boheme

Volker David Kirchner (born 25 June 1942 in Mainz) is a German composer and violist.

Biography[link]

Kirchner studied at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory in Mainz from 1956 to 1969 under Günter Kehr and Günter Raphael. Following this he studied with Bernd Alois Zimmermann at the Hochschule für Musik Köln from 1959 to 1963, and then under Tibor Varga at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold from 1964 to 1965, Kirchner played in jazz ensembles in Cologne, and played in several high-level ensembles as a violist, including the hr-Sinfonieorchester in Frankfurt from 1966 to 1988. He moved to Mainz and became a freelance composer in 1989. Invited by Walter Fink, he was the third composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1992.

He has written works for musical theater, the Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Hannover, Katholikentag, etc. Among awards he has won the 1994 Rheingau Musikpreis of the Rheingau Musik Festival and the 2007 Peter Cornelius Medal.

Selected works[link]

Opera

• Die Trauung (The Wedding) (1974) after Witold Gombrowicz
• Belshazar (1986); commissioned by the Bayerische Staatsoper
• Gilgamesh (2002); commissioned by the Niedersächsische Staatsoper Hannover on the occasion of the EXPO 2000
• Ahasver (2001); commissioned by the Bielefeld Theatre

Sacred music

• Requiem – Messa di Pace for soloist, choir and orchestra (1988)
• Missa Moguntina for soloist, choir, two echo-choirs, orchestra and organ (1993)
• Aus den 53 Tagen, Passion music for soloists, mixed chorus, male chorus, boys chorus, speaker (Evangelist) and orchestra (1998); commissioned by the "93. Deutscher Katholikentag" in Mainz

Orchestra

• Choral Variations for 15 solo strings (1967–1968)
• Bildnisse I for orchestra (1981–1982)
• Bildnisse II for orchestra (1983–1984)
• Bildnisse III: Hommage à W. A. Mozart for small orchestra (1989–1991)
• Symphony No. 2 "Mythen" (1992), premiered in Wiesbaden as part of the Rheingau Musik Festival

Concertante

• Nachtstück: Varianten über eine Wagnersche Akkordverbindung (Nocturne: Variations on a Wagnerian Chord Progression) for viola and chamber orchestra (1980–1981, revised 1983)
• Schibboleth, Poème Concertante for viola and orchesta (1989)
• Concerto for violin and orchestra (Hommage à Krzysztof Penderecki) (1981–1982)
• Concerto for oboe and orchestra (1997–1998)

Chamber music

• Dybuk for marimba solo (1995)
• Aus dem Buch der Könige, 3 Meditations for cello solo (2000)
• Piano Trio (1979)
• String Quartet [No.1] (1982–1983)
• Mysterion for altoflute, horn, viola d'amore, cello and piano (1985)
• Lamento d'Orfeo for horn and piano (1986)
• Drei Lieder (2 Songs) for medium voice, horn, violin, cello and piano (1985–1986)
• Und Salomo sprach ... (And Salomo Spoke) for cello solo (1987)
• Tre poemi (3 Poems) for horn and piano (1986–1987)
• Der blaue Harlekin (Hommage à Picasso) for flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons (also contrabassoon), 2 trumpets and 2 trombones (1981)
• Saitenspiel for violin and cello (1993)
• Gethsemani, Notturno for string sextet (1994)
• Quartet for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1984)
• Il canto della notte, Poema for clarinet, horn, piano, violin, viola and cello (1997–1998)
• Orphischer Gesang II for string sextet (1998)
• String Trio (2000)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1999)
• String Quartet No. 3 (2000)
• String Quartet No. 4 with obligato clarinet (2000)
• String Quartet No. 5 (2000, revised 2002)
• String Quartet No. 6 (2000)
• "Meine Augen möchte ich erfreuen, Shulamith..." for flute, horn, viola, cello and piano (2001)
• Pierrots Galgenlieder for clarinet solo (2001)
• Kreuzweg for 2 oboes and English horn (2001)
• Pietà, Partita for violin solo (2001)
• Threnos for solo cello (2006); written for the Feuermann Competition
• Strophen for 2 clarinets (also bass clarinet) and piano (2007)

Keyboard

• Sonata for piano (1985–1986)
• Luces and Sombras, 5 Tangos for piano (1999)
• Con mortuis in lingua mortua, 3 Pieces for organ (2000)
• Nachlese for piano (2010); commissioned by Walter Fink for his 80th birthday^[1]

References[link]

• Erika Schaller, "Volker David Kirchner". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians online

External links[link]

• Volker David Kirchner on the Schott website

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