{"id":5151,"date":"2020-09-29T12:14:02","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T10:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/?p=5151"},"modified":"2020-09-30T06:29:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T04:29:04","slug":"alumni-im-fokus-anne-marie-dragosits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/2020\/09\/29\/alumni-im-fokus-anne-marie-dragosits\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Alumni in Focus: Anne Marie Dragosits"},"content":{"rendered":"
It was early in life that this passionate musician felt drawn to her parents\u2019 piano\u2014and today, she\u2019s a frequently requested soloist, an enthusiastic continuo player, and a professor of harpsichord at the Institute of Early Music and Historical Performance Practice at the Anton Bruckner Private University of Upper Austria.<\/h5>\n
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In September 2017, Anne Marie Dragosits directed her first opera Francesco Cavalli\u2019s La Rosinda at Landestheater Linz (Linz State Theatre). \u00a9 Stefan Schweiger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c\u2026technique and lyricism of which only few are capable\u2026\u201d were the words chosen by the Spanish music magazine Scherzo<\/i> to describe the exceptional harpsichordist Anne Marie Dragosits in 2017. Dragosits, a native of Tyrol, has made doing what she loves into a career: \u201cIt was out of pure passion that I concentrated on the harpsichord, without any belief that I\u2019d actually have a realistic shot at living from it as a musician.\u201d But nowadays, she travels the world as an oft-invited soloist and as a member of numerous ensembles such as the prizewinning formation \u201cvivante\u201d.<\/p>\n

The myriad colours of the harpsichord, which she originally took up as a minor while studying recorder at the mdw, soon had her captivated\u2014though Dragosits spent two years studying piano and recorder and even considered switching to voice. She ultimately decided to major in harpsichord instead, with her mentor at the mdw\u2014Prof. Wolfgang Gl\u00fcxam\u2014having opened her ears to the numerous and rich facets of this captivating instrument. These days, she\u2019s still very grateful for the experience that she gathered playing treble parts and singing. \u201cThe way I was spread out back then really benefits me today: especially in continuo playing, being well acquainted with all of the roles involved in chamber music is a huge plus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advanced studies took her to Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. \u201cFor me as a musician,\u201d she explains, \u201cit\u2019s always been exhilarating and uplifting to step into a unfamiliar world\u2014first going from Tyrol to Vienna, and later on from Vienna to The Hague.\u201d It\u2019s therefore no surprise that the opportunity to set out on hitherto untrodden paths is one of the things that fascinates her about early music. The amount of still-undiscovered repertoire and the abundance of themes that have yet to be fully researched excite her every bit as much as does her field of work\u2019s stylistic diversity and improvisatory approach.<\/p>\n

As a continuo player, I enjoy participating in different kinds of formations ranging from intimate chamber ensembles to large orchestras.<\/p>\n

Anne Marie Dragosits<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fact that the harpsichord is still viewed as a non-dynamic instrument is something that, for Dragosits, doesn\u2019t really compute. \u201cSure, its dynamic amplitude is less than that of the piano\u2014but on a good instrument, you absolutely can produce clearly audible dynamic nuances simply by varying the attack. And by making use of articulation, phrasing, subtle timing tricks, and registration, we\u2019re able to create all kinds of sounds\u2014from delicate and sweet to wild and noisy.\u201d The success of her solo programmes on original harpsichords located throughout Europe offer the clearest proof of these impressive instruments\u2019 compelling liveliness. \u201dParticularly when it comes to dynamics and tone colour, these old instruments\u2014some of which have been vibrating for centuries\u2014can easily do things that I then try to coax out of replicas,\u201d explains Dragosits. \u201cThe originals help you realise just how many colours are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her love for period harpsichords can be heard on her numerous recordings. \u201cIn putting together my solo programmes, I take my inspiration from original harpsichords and their sounds, dig into the music\u2019s context and style, and always look for some kind of concept.\u201d All this is made clear by her latest CD, Le Clavecin Mythologique<\/i>, which features French high baroque programme music about mythological figures and themes performed on an original harpsichord from 1787 by Pascal Taskin at the Museum f\u00fcr Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. It\u2019s at this museum that she\u2019ll also be realising her next project: a recording on a German instrument built by Christian Zell in 1728.<\/p>\n

This autumn\u2014a bit later than planned due to COVID-19\u2014will see the publication of her first book, the theme of which was central to her master\u2019s degree thesis at the mdw and also the subject of her artistic doctorate, which she earned through the docARTES programme at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Her biography of Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (1580\u20131651), an early baroque theorbist and composer, is being published in German by the Italian publisher Libreria Musicale Italiana (LIM). And Anne Marie Dragosits adds that she\u2019ll soon be presenting her (in part quite surprising) research findings in workshops and lectures on Kapsperger and his diverse vocal music.<\/p>\n

Back then in Vienna, the early music offerings were very thin. But that\u2019s now changing in a big way!<\/p>\n

Anne Marie Dragosits<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was early in life that this passionate musician felt drawn to her parents\u2019 pian\ufeffo\u2014and today, she\u2019s a frequently requested soloist, an enthusiastic continuo player, and a professor of harpsichord at the Institute of Early Music and Historical Performance Practice at the Anton Bruckner Private University of Upper Austria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":5153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1020,1022,990,1047,1021],"class_list":["post-5151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-2020-3","tag-altemusik","tag-alumniimfokus","tag-annamariedragosits","tag-earlymusic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5151"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5272,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151\/revisions\/5272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}