The Freestyle Orchestra
Contemporary Circus Meets Classical Music Performance
The Freestyle Orchestra (TFO) is an artist collective assembled by visionary violinist and circus artist Sonja Schebeck . The ensemble unites classically trained musicians with a movement background and physical artists with a musical background who work actively to develop together into strongly multidisciplinary performers. Members rehearse both movement choreography and music together, also working individually to master a variety of circus disciplines including fire manipulation (staff spinning, poi, fire eating and fire breathing), the aerial arts (silks, corde lisse, straps), acrobatics (gymnastics, yoga, hand-balancing, banquine), circus movement (cyr wheel, card manipulation, etc.) and various dance/physical movement styles. The Freestyle Orchestra seeks methodologies to more fully integrate acoustic instrumental music with modern circus, dance and physical theatre elements, examining the interplay and intersectionalities between the physical and the musical artist.
Recent initiatives and collaborations include The Looking Glass Cabaret (2020 and 2021), The Secret Garden Festival (2021) and Vien.noir (2022). In 2023 their documentary was selected for the Circus International Film Festival, and their work has been showcased at international conferences such as SAR, ELIA Biennial and Classical:Next. Performance highlights include opening the Wiener Festwochen (2023), The Looking Glass Cabaret (2020 and 2021), Vien.noir (2022), and Sydney’s City Recital Hall’s “Concertos on Fire” (2019). VanderHart has been part of the leading team of the Freestyle Orchestra for the past seven years.
Mad Song - The Fribourg Sessions
Electro-Acoustic Improvisation
Mad Song is a Swiss-based experimental music collective led by guitarist and composer Luis Velasco-Pufleau. The ensemble explores innovative forms of music creation, combining long form improvisation, drone and feedback to create captivating experimental post-rock atmospheres which distort space and time. VanderHart joined Mad Song as part of a In connection with the Pro Helvetia Art+ Exchange ‘Live Electronics, Emotional Interactions and Creative Strategies in Free Collective Improvisation‘, conducted from June to September 2023 in Vienna and Fribourg with Prof. Marie Herzfeld-Schild who observed workshop sessions and guided the following autoethnographic reflections. This collaboration has led to the release of the album ‘The Fribourg Sessions’, featuring Raphael Nick, drums and percussion; VanderHart, prepared piano; Luis Velasco-Pufleau, electric guitar and live electronics; and Benoit Gisler, guitar and electronics.
Musical Crossroads
Wissensvermittlung & Performing Salons
Funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Musical Crossroads – Transatlantic Cultural Exchange, led by musicologist Melanie Unseld, examines the cultural transfer of music between England and North America, focusing particularly on the pre-institutional spaces of the salon. VanderHart coordinated with musicologist Carola Bebermeier and director Alan Burgon, designing two science communication and arts research events. The first combined immersive theater, musical performance, and conviviality to re-imagining the life and work of Boston salonnière Clara Rogers (1844 –1931), and the second, in Schlosstheater Schönbrunn, recreated the patchwork artistic production and influence of Salka Viertel’s “Harbour for the Homeless” in the 1930s and 1940s in Los Angeles, juxtaposing theater scenes, film clips, dramatic readings, letters, music performance, and narration in a similarly patchwork style.
Brahms Museum Mürzzuschlag
Historical Instruments
Beginning in 2007 VanderHart began working intensively with the Brahms Museum Mürzzuschlag, which has a significant collection of historical 19th century pianos by Striecher, Blüthner, Bösendorfer, Ehrbar and Steinway. Recordings include CDs with cellist Ronald Fuchs of works for cello and piano by Robert Fuchs and Johannes Brahms, including the Brahms cello sonatas performed on the ‘Brahms-Flügel’ by J.B. Streicher & Sohn from 1880. Thanks to continued support, VanderHart recorded 30 art songs, most of which had not been previously recorded, on five pianos and one historical harmonium, a project which involved 13 other musicians as well as a mobile recording engineer and a dedicated tuner on site over four days during a global pandemic. These recordings are released in connection with VanderHart’s forthcoming monograph ‘Lieder and Performance in 19th Century Vienna: Context and Perspectives’ (Oxford University Press, 2025).
Vien.Noir
Burlesque & Cabaret
Vien.Noir is a New York-Vienna based production company led by impressario and entertainer Rebecca Greenstein. They offer bespoke cabaret, burlesque and music-filled events with a glamorous, vintage Broadway / Old Hollywood aesthetic. They have appeared on Austrian National Television (ORF), mounted exclusive runs at the Calea Dinner Club, Porgy and Bess, and Vindobona in Vienna, and toured shows titled The Hot Box Girls’ Jazz Revue and L’Opera Burlesque. VanderHart served as music director for several years, performing as a conductor, pianist, and aerial artist.
Content-Concept-Context at the mdw
Artistic-Scientific Modules
In an ongoing effort at one of the largest and oldest music universities in Europe, the mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional teaching module/seminar combination was co-conceived. The aim was to begin bridge the thoughtworlds of vocal performance and musicology, and the initiative was carried out in its full-fledged form between the Department of Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI) and the Antonio Salieri Institute for Voice and Vocal Research in Music Education, by the team of Judith Kopecky, VanderHart, and Stephen Delaney beginning in fall of 2021. Themes included Women and the Murder Ballad: Implicit and Explicit Depictions of Violence in 19th Century Art Song (2021-2022); Voicing the Unvoiced: 19th Century Song Cycles Made Relevant for Today (2022-2023) and Performing Identity Through Music (2023-2024).