|
Born: September 8, 1928 - Pärnu (Pernau), Estonia
Died: November 30, 1999 - Munich, Bavaria, Germany |
|
The mezzo-soprano Andrea von Ramm (actual name: Andrea Ramm von Marnov) was born in Estonia. She went through very thorough training in Fribourg (Switzerland), Munich and Milan, which covered music theory, composition and musicology, apart also from singing instruction.
Andrea von Ramm's activity was directed in the concert hall on the one hand, and in the broadcast and recording studio on the other, in Early Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, as well as contemporary compositions. Some of the vocal works she performed were in her own arrangements. She created the Studio for New Music in Cologne, then in 1960 in Munich the Studio of the Early Music. In the latter ensemble she co-operated with the instrumental musicians Thomas Binkley and Sterling Jones, who had specialised in playing original instruments from early periods of music history. Andrea von Ramm undertook for her part the attempt to sing also the vocal part of these works as faithful to their origins as possible, whereby she extended the spectrum of the rendition possibilities by consultation of a tenor voice. Thus the tenors Nigel Rogers (1960-1964), Willard Cobb (1964-1970) und Richard Lewitt (since 1970) participated successively in the ensemble, which unfolded until 1977 an extensive concert activity and, particularly in connection with the German Goethe Institute, appeared all over the world. Andrea von Ramm even also played old instruments (Orgel-Portativ, Krummhorn, Dulcian). In the years 1972-1977 existed a fruitful artistic co-operation between the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and between the Studio of the Early Music.
In over 50 recordings Andrea von Ramm brought out mostly early vocal works, among them compositions of Machaud, Landini, Abélard, Ciconia and Dufay; in the Christophorus-Verlag medieval Minnelieder, on HMV an rendition of Cavalieri's " Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo ", on BASF she sang the alto solo in Coronation Mass by W.A. Mozart recorded live at the Basilika Birnau in Bodensee. |
