“Come to me, all you
who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)

Artistic Director: Silva Manfrè

25. 2. 2026
Silva Manfrè organ
Pater Pius Platz meditation

Music by Samuel Scheidt, Johann Pachelbel, and Girolamo Frescobaldi
  

4. 3. 2026
Ensemble vocale Vox Cordis
Claudia Artner-Nemeth, Astrid Jankowitsch, sopranos
Sarah-Maria Pilwax, alto, musical director
Roland Sticker, Veit Macke, tenors
Richard Strobl, Marc Eric Mitzscherling, basses
Pater Pius Platz meditation

Musiche di Hans Leo Hassler, William Byrd, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina e Thomas Tallis
  

11. 3. 2026
Daniel Johannsen tenor
Silva Manfrè organ
Pater Pius Platz meditation

Music by Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach

18. 3. 2026
Eva Münzberg viola da gamba
Pater Pius Platz meditation

Music by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe and Philippe Hersant

25. 3. 2026
Ching-Yao Wang transverse flute
Pater Pius Platz meditation

Music by Georg Philipp Telemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Sebastian Bach

How to get there

Photo © Albert Seitlinger

13. – 22. 8. 2026
Master class Silva Manfrè
Organ (Giovanni Bruna, 1794) 

The course takes place on Giovanni Bruna’s magnificent organ, preserved in the parish church of Magnano and built in 1794. It represents a valuable opportunity to discover a
historic Italian instrument. Its sound characteristics allow for the performance of a very wide repertoire, ranging from the Renaissance to the early 19th century.

Participants are free to choose their own program or consult the teacher before the course begins. On request, the sound characteristics of the instrument will be provided. Course participants have several opportunities to practice thanks to the presence of three other organs in Magnano.

Further information and registration

How to get here

Photo: Parish church S. Giovanni Battista, Magnano (I) © Silva Manfrè

Nominated for the “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”!
(German Record Critics’ Award)

Brilliant Classics

YouTube

Fotos:
Freundt-Richter organ of the former Baumgartenberg Collegiate Church © Josef Gusenbauer
CD-Cover: Ceiling of the former Baumgartenberg Collegiate Church © Josef Gusenbauer / Brilliant Classics

Silva Manfrè, born in Verona (I), combines a pronounced affinity for historically informed performance practice with the exploration of rarely performed and new works of the organ repertoire. She pursued her musical studies at the State Conservatory of Verona and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna; decisive impulses were provided by her studies with Michael Radulescu as well as master classes with Gaston Litaize, Guy Bovet, Bernard Brauchli, Esteban Elizondo, Harald Vogel, Lorenzo Ghielmi, and Paolo Crivellaro. At the Scuola di Paleografia e Filologia Musicale in Cremona, she completed musicological studies with a dissertation on 20th-century organ music and was an Erasmus scholar at the University of Vienna.

Her concert activities as a soloist and chamber musician have taken Silva Manfrè to festivals in Italy (Musica Antica a Magnano, Asiago Festival Internazionale, Festival Mozart Rovereto, Festival Serassi, Antichi Organi Varese, and others), France (Festival International Orgues d’Été de Bordeaux), Austria (Donaufestwochen Grein, Innsbruck Organ Concerts, “Music for a while. Alte Musik in Bludenz”, Jeunesse and ORF/Ö1 in Vienna, and others), Switzerland (Festival Antegnati in Bellinzona, Rassegna organistica Valmaggese), Slovakia (Festival Slovenské historické organy in Bratislava), as well as Spain, Slovenia, Czech Republic, and other European countries. Radio recordings were made for ORF/Ö1, Radio Klassik Stephansdom, and the European Broadcasting Union.

A focal point of her work consists of first recordings and rediscoveries: For Brilliant Classics, Silva Manfrè released the world’s first complete recording of Ottavio Bariolla’s Ricercate per sonar d’Organo (1585) at the Antegnati organ of the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua (Italy), as well as Franz Xaver Anton Murschhauser’s Prototypon Longo-Breve Organicum, recorded at the historic Freundt/Richter organ in Baumgartenberg (Austria); this recording was nominated for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Central artistic concerns also include world premieres and first performances of works by composers such as Wolfgang Sauseng, Victor Estapé, and Pier Damiano Peretti.

Following her position as titular organist at the Cappella Musicale in the Cathedral of Padua, Silva Manfrè now serves as principal organist at the Piarist Church of St. Thekla in Vienna and has been teaching organ, chamber music, and basso continuo at the master classes of the Festival Musica Antica a Magnano in Piedmont (Italy) since 2018. Alongside her musical activities, she devotes herself intensively to languages and literature, teaches Italian at the Società Dante Alighieri in Vienna – whose board she helped shaping for several years as vice president – and worked as a translator for the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Bregenz Festival, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, and the Wien Modern festival.

01/2026

Silva Manfrè _ CV 2026 en

Foto: Silva Manfrè (© Julia Wesely)