The 40th Annual German Lieder Competition

Entry for this competition is at The Victoria Conservatory of Music entrance at 900 Johnson Street. Admission by donation.  The Classical Voice department offers four annual Song Competitions for current students of the VCM to perform, compete, and receive feedback from renowned and respected adjudicators.

First and Second Prizes as well as Honourable Mentions are available to be awarded for each competition.

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40th annual German Lieder Voice Competition

About the German Lieder Competition

The Classical Voice Department provides this opportunity for students of all ages and abilities to perform two contrasting German Art Songs. The audience can expect to hear songs by Schubert, Robert and Clara Schumann, Strauss, Wolf, and many more.

Student participants perform in Alix Goolden Performance Hall and receive feedback from adjudicators. We are pleased to have Anne Grimm and Benjamin Butterfield as our adjudicators and Alex Chen as our Collaborative Pianist.

German Lieder Voice Competition Programme

Junior & Intermediate 5:30pm

Senior A &; B 6:30pm

Adjudicators

Anne Grimm

Dutch soprano Anne Grimm studied violin and voice at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and received scholarships from the Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten to pursue her vocal studies in London and in the US through the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. Since then she has been held in high regard for her work in opera, concert and recital throughout Europe, North America as well as Australia and New Zealand.

She has toured extensively with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Ambronay, Salzburg Festival) as well as with the Amsterdamse Bachsolisten under Roy Goodman and The Netherlands Bachvereniging. Anne has also appeared with Christophe Rousset, Massimo Zanetti and at the Halle Handel Festspiele and Potsdam Festival Sanssouci. Other highlights have included touring with Frans Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century as well as singing with the Netherlands Opera, Nationale Reis Opera and at the Holland Festival.

Past performances have included the Tanglewood Festival, the National Arts Center Orchestra under Pinchas Zuckerman, Toronto’s Tafelmusik, Toronto Masque Theater, Symphony Nova Scotia, Winnipeg Symphony, Victoria Symphony, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Apollo’s Fire in Cleveland and at the Ojai Festival in California.

Recognized for her performances of contemporary music, Ms. Grimm toured with Aventa Ensemble to Calgary, Montreal and New York City performing works of Saariaho and Gonneville as well as opening the Adelaide Festival in Australia as Marilyn Monroe in Gavin Bryars’ chamber opera, Marilyn Forever. Other performances have included Christopher Butterfield’s Contes pour enfants pas sage with Continuum in Toronto as well as performing music of Gavin Bryars with the composer for the Victoria Symphony. Most recently she performed the role of Barate in Rudolf Komorous’ Chamber Opera The Mute Canary with Turning Point ensemble of Vancouver touring to Prague and Ostrava in the Czech Republic.

Ms. Grimm has recorded extensively for Erato, NM Classics, Vanguard Classics, Troubadisc, Sony Classics and Harmonia Mundi France as well as for CBC Radio, ZDF, RAI, Radio France and VARA in the Netherlands.

Since 2009 she has been on the Voice Faculty at the UVic School of Music and regularly adjudicates and teaches masterclasses at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

Benjamin Butterfield Benjamin Butterfield studied voice with Selena James at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He later graduated from McGill University and was awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts to study in the USA, UK and Italy. He was recognized by the Sullivan Foundation and Oratorio Society of New York and was a participant at the Steans Vocal Institute at the Ravinia Festival, Chicago.

In conjunction with his tenure at UVic, Benjamin maintains an active singing career and is represented by Schwalbe & Partners in New York. Performance highlights include: Handel’s Tamerlano with the legendary stage director Jonathan Miller at Glimmerglass Opera; Montreal Jazz Festival with Dave Brubeck; sharing the stage with film star Isabella Rossellini at the San Carlo in Naples and Epidaurus in Greece, filming Messiah for ZDF at the Handel Festspiele-Halle with Trevor Pinnock and performing in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion for Coretta Scott King at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. Other performances have included Rossini’s Barber of Seville with Welsh National Opera, Mozart’s Magic Flute at New York City Opera, Haydn’sCreation with the Orchestra of St. Lukes at Carnegie Hall and Stankovych’s Kiddish Requiem with the Hamburg Philharmonic in Kyiv, Ukraine for the 75th anniversary of Babyn Yar. Heard regularly on CBC Radio and nominated for several Juno Awards, Mr. Butterfield has also been featured on episodes of This is my music.

Professor Butterfield previously served on faculty at York University in Toronto and has taught and performed at Opera Nuova Edmonton, Opera on the Avalon in Newfoundland, the Vancouver International Song Institute, the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, the Victoria Conservatory Summer Vocal Academy, Orford Musique in Quebec and at Yellow Barn in Vermont.

Piano

Alex Chen

Alex Chen is a collaborative pianist and vocal coach whose personal approach and intellectual curiosity bring fresh perspectives on a diverse body of musical works. In the words of mentor John Hess, he is “an immensely musical and sensitive player” with “a deeply inquisitive mind”.

Alex has an MMus from the University of Western Ontario in Collaborative Piano, an ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Piano Performance, and a BSc from the University of Guelph. He is currently on faculty at the Victoria Conservatory of Music in addition to working as a freelance pianist for students at the University of Victoria.

His experiences include work in art song recital, playing as an opera répétiteur, collaborating with choirs, and exploring the instrumental duo & chamber music canons. Distinguishing himself as a performer and researcher, Alex held a Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). His scholarship supported his work in art song recital programming. As the first phase of his research, he created and performed song cycles formulated from disparate works by Rachmaninov and Brahms. For his second phase, he delivered a stirring recital titled “Demons & Dichterliebe” that juxtaposed supernatural bewitchment and obsessive love.

Among his many projects, Alex has been involved as a pianist and coach with the Accademia Europea dell’Opera (an experience funded by a Create and Explore Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts), the Victoria Conservatory’s Collegium program, and the Western University Opera Workshop. These collaborations have culminated in performances of Le nozze di Figaro, Serse, and Die Zauberflöte. Moreover, Alex has worked with singers and ensembles on numerous other arias, opera scenes, and choral performances.

In his spare time, Alex enjoys singing the odd song, performing in the chorus for Pacific Opera Victoria, and going on hikes in search of birds.

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Mark your calendar for upcoming voice competitions!

16th Annual Italian and World Language Song Competition

Thursday, February 09 2023 (note this one is on a different day)

29th Annual French Art Song Competition “La mélodie française”
Wednesday, April 12 2023