Mission

LIEDER ALIVE! offers frequent opportunities to experience German Lieder, multi-lingual vocal repertoire, and instrumental chamber music in an intimate environment, performed by highly accomplished emerging and established professionals.The purpose of LIEDER ALIVE! is to create an opportunity for deep transformation for the artists and for the audience at large. This important relationship of our supremely gifted musical artists with our patrons is keeping this canon of uniquely expressive and luminous art forms passionately ALIVE!

As one of our most revered singing artists delightfully suggested, we are “Changing the world—one Lied at a time...”

LIEDERABEND SERIES

LIEDER ALIVE!’s annual Liederabend Series, held at the Noe Valley Ministry, has featured such outstanding artists as Brian Asawa, Kirk Eichelberger, George Fee, Heidi Moss Erickson, John Parr, Kindra Scharich, Peter Grünberg, Jeffrey LaDeur, Paul Yarbrough, and the Alexander String Quartet.

Neue Lieder

Kurt Erickson, our Composer-in-Residence, heads our Neue Lieder Commissioning Program, which began with a five-song cycle by Mr. Erickson written for Heidi Moss Erickson. The program continued with further works for Kindra Scharich, Paul Yarbrough, and Kirk Eichelberger, Under Mr. Erickson’s direction, our “Neue Lieder Songbook” includes a wealth of original works by Mr. Erickson and other guest Neue Lieder composers.

Mahler Cycles Recording Project

LIEDER ALIVE! has embarked on a unique collaboration with the award-winning Alexander String Quartet and the acclaimed mezzo-soprano, our Artist-in-Residence Kindra Scharich, on the performance and recording of some of the great orchestral Lieder, transcribed for voice and string quartet by Zakarias Grafilo, the Quartet’s first violinist.

With your help, we made musical history!

Following a rare benefit performance of Wagner’s transcendent Wesendonck-Lieder by Heidi Melton and John Parr, Heidi spoke about LIEDER ALIVE!—and the importance of operatic voices singing Lieder.

Master Workshops, Coaching, and Monthly Class

LIEDER ALIVE!’s Master Vocal Workshops brought together internationally renowned Master Artists, including Thomas Hampson, Marilyn Horne, June Anderson, and Håkan Hagegård, with highly accomplished emerging and established professional singers for intensive training and performance. Our international coaching program has extended to specially arranged private coaching with Christa Ludwig in Vienna, and Edith Mathis in Salzburg.

Our Lieder Institute, led by Master Coach John Parr, deepens this experience.

Monthly Class: Bringing Lieder to Life. This monthly class explored the many facets of lieder performance, bringing together poetry, language, music, technique, and presentation, and will resume soon. Maxine Bernstein, LIEDER ALIVE! founder and director, combines forces with renowned pianist, conductor and lecturer Peter Grünberg, in a master class setting, to bring your understanding of lieder to the next level.