During the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt’s concert at the Manoel Theatre on 22 November, the vocal part has been entrusted to Austrian mezzo-soprano Lydia Vierlinger. She will sing a set of six Scottish songs by Beethoven, some to lyrics by Smyth and Burns and one to lyrics by an anonymous poet. Originally for voice and piano these songs will be performed in an arrangement for voice and piano trio.

Lydia Vierlinger is a much sought-after singer who was born in Linz, Upper Austria. Her musical studies were initially in piano and violin and she studied both in her native Austria and later in New York. Later, in Vienna she dedicated herself to vocal studies at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. Later still she studied with Diane Forlano in London and Herwig Retter in Vienna. Her subsequent success led to her being assumed as assistant professor of voice in 2004, at the same University in Vienna where she pursued her advanced studies.

Very much in demand as interpreter of old music and also in other styles, Lydia Vielringer has worked with leading conductors at several prestigious venues. She has taken part in well-known festivals such as the Salzburg, the Haydn and the Wiener Festwochen. She has sung in France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Singapore, Germany and the UK. Among the highlights of her career was singing in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Madrid, in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in festivals of Renaissance music. She has sung the famous B minor Mass by J. S. Bach and the lesser-known one (also in B minor) by the latter’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel. Lydia Vierlinger has also taken part in the revival of the once-lost baroque opera by Telemann, Pastorelles en musique, first in Gmunden, Austria then in Vienna’s Musikvereinsaal. The latter performance was recorded for the label Capriccio.