Flutist Anton, Pianist Ryan to Perform, Lecture at March 15 University Forum

World renowned flutist and musicologist Ulrike Anton will perform and lecture Tuesday, March 15 at 6:30 p.m. in Bennett Auditorium on The University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg campus. The event is part of the spring University Forum series, and admission is free.

Along with accomplished international pianist Russell Ryan, the two will present "Entartete Musik:  Exiled, Ostracized, and Murdered Composers," focusing on composers who were active in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt.

“Ulrike Anton's lecture-recital will explore the fascinating musical scene in the concentration camp Theresienstadt and shed light on a rich, virtually unknown body of music created by those who suffered under unspeakably inhumane conditions,” said Dr. Edward Hafer, assistant professor of music history at Southern Miss.

“As we shall hear, not even the darkest times can stifle man's need for creative expression. This presentation by Anton and Russell Ryan will demonstrate the power of the creative spirit under the most trying circumstances.”

Born in Graz, Austria, Anton studied music in Austria, France and Great
Britain.  In Paris she studied with Raymond Guiot (Conservatoire Hector Berlioz) and Jean-Loup Grégoire (École Nationale de Musique Bourg-la-Reine) and graduated with honors.

She did post-graduate work at Manchester, where she finished her flute studies with Peter Lloyd (Royal Northern College of Music), obtaining the Professional Performance Diploma. She also received a master of music degree at the University of Manchester and a Ph.D. in musicology at Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and Universität Wien.

She has received multiple honors for her work, including first prize at the Concours Musical Régional d'Île-de-France in Paris,1994; a radio broadcast at the B.B.C. Radio 2 Young Musician Competition in1996; and a live radio broadcast of a recital in Chicago's Preston Bradley Hall, awarded in 1999 by the International Music Foundation/Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts.

Along with Ryan, Anton teaches at the Institute for the International Education of Students (IES) in Vienna, where she leads the instrumental performance class for chamber music. She also gives master classes at universities in the U.S. and in Slovakia, and concertizes regularly as a soloist in the U.S., Europe and China.

A native of North Dakota, Ryan studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at the famed Juilliard School in New York. He then studied piano chamber music under Georg Ebert at Vienna's University for Music and Performing Arts, where he graduated with honors. While in San Francisco, he was a multiple prize winner at the San Francisco Junior Bach Festival.

In 1985 he became a member of staff of the vocal department at Vienna's University for Music and Performing Arts, and until 1991 worked there as an assistant in the lied-class of Edith Mathis. For several years he was also accompanist of the Wiener Singverein and frequently gave master classes for lied, opera and musical theatre at international festivals, such as the Jugendfestival Bayreuth, the Wiener Meisterkurse, the Gino Bechi Festival in Florence, the Oslo Music Academy and at Middlebury College in Vermont.

In addition to his teaching duties at IES, he is also a guest artist at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival and since August 2008 is professor for collaborative piano at Arizona State University. He performs regularly as a soloist and accompanist in Europe, the U.S., Israel and China. He appeared in many radio and television broadcasts, recorded several CDs and successfully concertized at the Wiener Festwochen, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, the Grieg Festival Oslo and the Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival in Germany as well as New York's Carnegie Hall.

This event is sponsored by the Southern Miss Honors College, the Southern Miss School of Music and the Mississippi Humanities Council. For more information, contact the Southern Miss Honors College at 601.266.4533.