The beautiful “old Austrian” German and Yiddish and the natural mixing of the two languages in everyday life on many streets and quarters of the erstwhile imperial capital city of Vienna was the origin of an unmatched abundance of cultural goods, which suffered a sudden disruption through the Nazi terror regime. “Out of Sight”, the new album of Viennese soprano Ethel Merhaut is dedicated to discovering long forgotten Viennese songs by Jewish composers (Egon Neumann, Fritz Spielmann, Walter Jurmann, Hermann Leopoldi) and evergreens of Yiddish popular music in the United States, disclosing the close ties between these genres. Internationally acclaimed musicians like Bela Koreny, piano, Julian Rachlin, Roby and Robert Lakatos, violins, Sarah McElravy, viola, Boris Adrianov, cello, Andreas Ottensamer, clarinet and Herwig Gradischnig, saxophone provide for unforgettable moments rife of emotion and musical enthusiasm.

Ethel Merhaut completed vocal studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in addition to a Master’s degree (Magister) in theatre, film and media studies at the University of Vienna. She celebrated her debut in 2011 at the opera festival Klosterneuburg, and has since performed in venues like the Gasteig Munich, Neue Oper Wien, Kammeroper Wien, in Müpa in Budapest, at the Teatro Sociale in Trento, Bühne Baden and the Kammeroper Castle Rheinsberg.

Merhaut has enjoyed a long collaboration with the organization exil.arte, which is dedicated to exiled composers. In the concert series “Echo des Unerhörten” (“Echo of the Unheard”), which is also broadcast by Austria’s national broadcaster Ö1, Ethel Merhaut regularly presents ostracized composers such as Hans Gál, Alexandre Tansman and Ruth Schönthal.