Song Evening - Veronika Dünser and Luca De Grazia

This song evening spans a wide, sensitive arc between love, nature, longing, and the universal language of music. The concert opens with songs by Robert Stolz, which, with a life-affirming lightness, show how love—both in the grand and the small—brightens everyday life and sustains relationships. An intimate, nature-connected image of togetherness is then painted by the song "Here in the Forest with You" by the Vorarlberg composer Gerda Poppa. Longing, secret passion, and deep connection characterize the following stages of the evening—from the urgent "Secret Invitation" to the touchingly calm "Liberated," which tells of a love that endures even beyond transience. With "Fish's Night Song," an almost silent soundscape emerges, before Franz Schubert impressively unfolds the entire spectrum between natural idyll, myth, tension, and dark passion with "The Trout," the "Song of a Mariner to the Dioscuri," and the dramatic "The Dwarf." The famous piano song "To Sing on the Water" also captures this poetic connection between nature and transience. In "Little Earth," based on a poem by Elene Spoerl, the focus finally turns to the fragility of our planet and to a mindful connection with the world that surrounds us.

After the intermission, the evening turns to the boundless language of music. Folk songs from Spain, Ticino, Ireland, Israel, Vorarlberg, Lebanon, and the Czech Republic invite a sonorous journey through different cultures. The "Song Without Words" brings this journey to a calm, timeless conclusion—beyond language and translation. The passionate finale is marked by the Gypsy songs of Johannes Brahms, where dance-like energy, longing melancholy, and fiery drama come together for a captivating conclusion.

This atmospheric evening is shaped by the Austrian mezzo-soprano Veronika Dünser, who completed her training in Feldkirch and Vienna and can be experienced on significant stages both at home and abroad—among others in Vienna, Bern, Klagenfurt, at the Salzburg Festival, as well as in numerous concert and song evening formats. She has worked with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, performed with the Vienna Symphony, and is a sought-after interpreter in both opera and concert fields.

At the piano, she is accompanied by Luca De Grazia, born in Lugano, trained in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and France. He is an internationally active pianist, chamber musician, and song accompanist, regularly participating in renowned masterclasses, opera studios, and festivals, and is involved at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz as well as at international academies.

An evening of songs full of colors, stories, and moods—between intimacy, nature, passion, and the unifying power of music.