University Professor (ret.) MMag
Wolfgang Holzmair
In his teaching, Wolfgang Holzmair places particular emphasis not only on the major works of the oratorio repertoire but also on the rich traditions of the Viennese Classical song (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven), the music of Franz Schubert, and the German Lied and French mélodie from Schumann to Schönberg and from Fauré to Debussy. Through special projects, he also encourages students to recognise broader artistic contexts and to develop thoughtful, individually conceived concert programmes.
Wolfgang Holzmair studied economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Mag. rer. soc. oec.) and voice (Hilde Rössel-Majdan) and Lied (Erik Werba) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He earned his master’s degree at the Mozarteum University with a thesis on the largely unknown composer Max Kowalski.
As a recitalist, Holzmair has made regular guest appearances in the world’s leading music centres, including venues in London, Lisbon, Moscow, New York, Seoul and Washington, as well as at the Risør Festival (Norway), the festivals in Bath, Belfast and Edinburgh (UK), the Menuhin Festival Gstaad (Switzerland), the Bregenz Festival, Styriarte and the Carinthian Summer (Austria), performing with many of the leading Lied pianists of his time. His particularly close artistic collaboration with the British pianist Imogen Cooper deserves special mention.
On the operatic stage he has interpreted, among others, Papageno and the Sprecher (Die Zauberflöte), Guglielmo and Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), several roles in operas by Joseph Haydn, Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Harlequin and the Music Master (Ariadne auf Naxos), Faninal (Der Rosenkavalier), Olivier and the Count (Capriccio), the Father (Hänsel und Gretel), Valentin (Faust), Eisenstein and Dr Falke (Die Fledermaus), Danilo (The Merry Widow), Pelléas (Pelléas et Mélisande), Demetrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Hans Scholl (Die Weiße Rose, Udo Zimmermann) and Eduard (Neues vom Tage, Hindemith).
Wolfgang Holzmair has worked with leading European and American orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, under conductors such as Blomstedt, Boulez, Chailly, Iván Fischer, Frühbeck de Burgos, Haitink, Harnoncourt, Norrington and Ozawa.
He has an extensive and critically acclaimed recording output in the fields of opera and concert repertoire, including a Grammy Award for Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem under Herbert Blomstedt. His discography also includes around 50 solo CDs devoted to Lieder (from Joseph Haydn to Ernst Krenek) as well as French mélodies by major composers of the genre. For many years he has also been particularly committed to the works of composers formerly persecuted as “degenerate”, as documented in recordings devoted to Mittler, Zeisl, Schreker, Krenek, Kowalski and music from Theresienstadt.
Since 1998, Holzmair has directed a Lied and Oratorio class at the Mozarteum University. He has given masterclasses throughout Europe, North America and Asia and has served as a juror at major international competitions, including Cardiff, Montreal, Oslo and the Wigmore Hall Competition in London. He has also worked as artistic advisor and curator for several concert series. From autumn 2014 to early 2019, Holzmair served as director of the International Summer Academy Mozarteum Salzburg, overseeing significant reforms in artistic, pedagogical and administrative areas.