Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth

Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth, piano 

 

was born in Vienna, Austria. She began her musical studies in Vienna and attended master classes at the Conservatoire de Nancy in France with the American pianists Celeste O’Brian and Liz Wolff. She studied piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she received two Master of Music and Arts degrees with honours. The subject of her thesis – which was also published – was “Sound of Music – Myth and Marketing”. In addition, Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth is a graduate of the University of Vienna with a master’s degree in Romance studies. 

 

From 1994 to 1995, she continued her education at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris with Mme. Marie-Francoise Bucquet and at the Sorbonne Nouvelle de Paris. She was honoured with the Award of Excellence of the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Science for outstanding artistic achievements.

 

Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth has been teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna since 1999 and is highly sought after as a guest lecturer at various music institutions in Austria, lecturing on topics such as “Elementary Piano Technique”, “Music Education and Concert Pedagogy”, “Collaborative Learning in Piano Pedagogy”, etc. She also serves as a juror for Prima La Musica, a national piano competition in Austria, in the categories of piano solo performance and piano chamber music.

 

As an accompanist, she has worked with the Mozart Vienna Boys' Choirand toured Europe and Japan. She has performed as a soloist and a chamber musician in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, England, Portugal, France and Serbia. Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth gives 40–50 concerts per year at theMusikverein Vienna and at the Brucknerhaus Linz, where she is the co-creator along with Hanne Muthspiel-Payer and performer of two concert series aimed at young children, theKlingKlangconcerts and mini.music concerts. These acclaimed concerts, which feature theatrical storytelling elements and encourage audience participation, celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2014. 

 

At the Arnold Schoenberg Center Vienna, Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth developed and has been conducting a music education programme for students aged 7 to 18 called “Schoenberg sounds great!” from 1996 to 2017. 

 

Together with Antoinette Van Zabner, she has published several books on piano pedagogy – which have been translated into seven languages – at the renowned publishing houses Universal Edition Vienna and Breitkopf&Härtel Germany.

 

Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth participates in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s music communication programmepasswort:klassik as a pianist and music educator. As a member of the werkstatt für musikvermittlung– a group of musicians and music educators from Germany, Switzerland and Austria – she develops operas aimed at young audiences at the Salzburg Festival of Music (W.A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte2006, C.M. von Weber: Der Freischütz2007, H. Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini2007, W.A. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro2009 and Don Giovanni2010, G. Verdi: Macbeth, G. Puccini: La Bohème2012, G. Verdi:Falstaff2013, R. Wagner: Meistersinger von Nürnberg 2013) along with other performances.

 

Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth is a co-founder of the Musikpalette, a group of musicians and composers that focus on contemporary music. Since 1999, they have been organising chamber music courses and improvisation workshops, commissioning international composers such as Gerald Resch, Alexander Stankovski, Germàn Toro-Pèrez, Ming Wang, Reinhard Fuchs, Richard Graf, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, Till A. Körber, Wolfgang Suppan, Robert Wildling, Fritz Keil and Hannes Heher, and building bridges between composers, students and performers.

 

Presently Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth is touring in Germany, Austria and Greece with a solo piano program together with the performer Johannes Volkmann from the “Paper Theatre Nürnberg” and is playing in the “Orpheus Ensemble Vienna” together with Christina Neubauer (vl), Martin Kraushofer (va) and Eva Landkammer (vc). 

Elisabeth Aigner-Monarth participates regularly in the Erasmus-Teaching-Programme and gave piano masterclasses, lectures and concerts at the Conservatorio statale di musica Jacopo Tomadini in Udine, at the Conservatorio di musica G. Tartini in Triest, at the Conservatorio Superior de Música Victoria Eugenia in Granada and at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart.