Kurt Girk

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Kurt Girk (also Kurtl Girk , born May 22, 1932 in Vienna ; † February 8, 2019 ) was an Austrian folk music singer of Viennese songs . He is called the " Frank Sinatra von Ottakring ".

Life

Kurt Girk grew up in the Ottakring district of Vienna. He also spent his entire life there. As a child he traveled through Vienna with street singers, although this was forbidden during the Austro-Fascist era. After finishing school he learned the tailoring trade . The owner of a dance school next to the workshop asked him to dance there because she had noticed him because of his elegant clothes. In the dance school, at that time the only one with a live band, he was a sought-after dancer for some time. After his apprenticeship, he started his own business as an “iron trader”, an outdated term for trading in used metal goods, comparable to a scrap dealer , and as a fruit and vegetable dealer.

In 1950 he met the slaughterhouse worker and singer Heini Griuc (1932-2004). After that his passion for the Wienerlied awoke and he began to learn works by other interpreters from shellac records. He met the singer Maly Nagl (1893–1977) and the composer Fritz Wolferl (1899–1974), whose songs he performed, often in joint appearances with Heini Griuc. He made his first official appearance in 1953.

Since then he has performed regularly in and around Vienna, mainly in wine taverns . According to his own account, he turned down offers from the USA and Japan in the 1950s because he quickly became homesick outside of Vienna. He gave up the trade and ran an inn as a “singing landlord”. His artistic activity was interrupted by a six-year prison sentence for his involvement in a mail robbery at the end of the 1960s, which he denied.

In 1994 he recorded a CD with Trude Mally . Rudi Koschelu later became his main partner. With him and Tommy Hojsa he forms the Kurt Girk Trio . Franz Paul Fiebrich is named as his favorite composer .

In 2011 there was a photo exhibition by Stephan Mussil about him in the Theater am Spittelberg Vienna.

Kurt Girk had a lung removed. Even so, he continued to sing and smoke . At the age of 83, he said in 2013 that music was the elixir of his life and that he had no symptoms of old age. Life could go on and on.

He was buried at the Ottakringer Friedhof .

Artistic classification

Kurt Girk is described by the Wiener Volksliedwerk as an artist who will go down in history as “Frank Sinatra von Ottakring” “through his stage presence, paired with suburban charm and inimitable elegance”.

In 2013, Michael Huber gave him an aura in the Kurier with which he could bring elegance into the room before he even started singing. His legendary status among friends of the Wienerlied is not based on clinging to tradition, but rather “Much of the singer's fascination assumes that he opens up an incredibly diverse world through full identification with his music and his milieu. This sincerity also inspires those who don't know what to do with the Wienerlied - in a different time, in a different place Girk might have become a rapper or soul singer. ”If Girk sings, he would not be his age of 83 years to note. He is so present that he can be 15 or 50 years old.

At a concert for the presentation of his ORF CD in September 2007 in the Radiokulturhaus , he was called one of the last "nature singers". His whole love is for singing, and it is not without good reason that he bears the title “Frank Sinatra von Ottakring” and as such is a legend even during his lifetime. His voice still has many colors "despite decades of exertion in favor of Heurigen entertainment: from rough to pithy to sweet". Like his gestures and facial expressions, she is unique.

His singing partner Rudi Koschelu pays tribute to his huge repertoire of songs, which he sings with great enthusiasm. Microphone recordings with him are more difficult, as he often forgets this in his euphoric singing and walks freely through the room, especially if he has had a “glass” in between as a real Heuriger singer. He attests to him an "inimitable kind with a lot of heart and emotion".

Honors

In 2012 he received the Golden City Hall Man of the City of Vienna for his services to the Wienerlied.

Discography

  • 1994: Pfüat Di Gott Du Alte Zeit with Heini Griuc, Willy Lehner and Trude Mally
  • 2008: Sounds Kurt (ORF)
  • 2011: kiss! To sing! Drink! (fischrecords) as Kurt Girk Trio

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wienerliedsänger Kurt Girk dies. In: Small newspaper . February 9, 2019, accessed February 10, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Michael Huber: Kurt Girk: "Aaa Liad scheena wia's others!" In: kurier.at . November 16, 2015, accessed October 26, 2016 .
  3. ^ A b c Franz Richter: Kurt Girk - a Viennese original. In: Concerto, Issue 6–11. December 1, 2011, accessed February 10, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c "Sounds Kurt" - Kurt Girk sings Viennese songs. (No longer available online.) In: ORF RadioKulturhaus . October 1, 2008, archived from the original on February 12, 2012 ; accessed on February 10, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Kurt Girk. In: Wiener Volksliedwerk . Retrieved October 26, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Kurt Girk in the search for the deceased at friedhoefewien.at
  7. ↑ Elke Atzler: Publishing Program Autumn 2015 Edition.Lammerhuber.at. (PDF; 807 kB) In: Wiener Volksliedwerk. July 3, 2015, p. 29 , accessed February 10, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Girk, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Girk, Kurtl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian folk music singer
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 2019