Album Notes

The album includes the two famous song cycles 'Les Nuits d'Été' by Berlioz and 'La Bonne Chanson' by Fauré. Both these groups of songs are more known in their settings for voice & orchestra/ensemble which were created by the composers after the original piano versions had been published. So this is a rare opportunity to hear these songs in their original forms.

BARBARA SENATOR studied singing with Prof. Jitka Kovarikova-Richter at the Academy of Music Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig and with Hannerose Katterfeld at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. In addition to that she became a member of the opera class of Julia Varady and the song classes of Wolfram Rieger and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. She gave her opera debut as Don Ramiro in Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera at the Engadin Opera Festival in St. Moritz, followd by engagements at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg, the opera houses in Mainz and Schwerin, the State Opera of Berlin and the Thèatre du Capitole de Toulouse. As a member of the Junges Ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich she sang, among others, the roles of Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Prinzregententheater. Barbara Senator has sung under the baton conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Fabio Luisi, Stefan Soltesz, Adam Fischer, Daniel Barenboim, Ivor Bolton, Daniel Harding or Lothar Zagrosek. Some of her recent roles have been Cherubino in Le Nozze Di Figareo at the Opera House in Essen, a Magic Flute production at the Wiener Festwochen in Vienna and at the Festival Aix-en-Provençe. As a member of the State Opera in Hanover have been Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tute, Hänsel in Hänsel Und Gretel, Muse in The Tales Of Hoffmann, Idamante in Idomeneo and Angelina in La Cenerentola. Future engagements will include her debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in England.

Pianist PAUL CIBIS is known both as a soloist and as an accompanist with regular performances in his native Germany and abroad. He has been invited to several festivals such as the Feuchtwangen Piano Festival, the Oxford Lieder Festival, the Kurt Weill Fest Dessau and the Jüdische Kulturtage Frankfurt am Main, and he has travelled as far as New Zealand for a series of song recitals or the US for solo recitals in Los Angeles and New York City. He appeared in TV & radio broadcasts for the WDR, 3Sat, ORB, HR, RTHK, CCTV and the BBC. During recent years Paul has increasingly been invited to the Far East and beyond to perform at festivals in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Adelaide, Australia. Paul studied piano with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hanover. He then read musicology and philosophy at universities in Berlin and London. In 1998 he started working with Peter Feuchtwanger in London - firstly as a private student, since 2002 as his assistant. He now regularly gives masterclasses for pianists in Taiwan. As a duo specialist Paul graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London studying with Graham Johnson, Robin Bowman and Eugene Asti. Privately or in masterclasses he also worked with Hartmut Höll, Irwin Gage, Sarah Walker, Christa Ludwig, Thomas Hampson und Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. In October 2005 Paul became a member of staff at Trinity College of Music in London; additionally he gives Lieder workshops at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.