"•Always Christmas!' A Christmas sceptic experiences a miraculous transformation through music and silence, through a girl and fairy tales, through sickness and recovery in the...

"•Always Christmas!' A Christmas sceptic experiences a miraculous transformation through music and silence, through a girl and fairy tales, through sickness and recovery in the weeks of advent. The short story '7 Minutes before Christmas' for narrator and flute by Michael Dangl after the eponymous piece of music by Pavel Karmanov is accompanied by music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Astor Piazolla, Pyotr Pospelow, Pavel Karmanov and others. Michael Dangl, recitation and piano, and Maria Fedotova, flute, exude the best Christmas atmosphere in a special way. • Michael Dangl has been a member of the ensemble of the Theater in der Josefstadt, Vienna, since 1998. He received training in his parents' actors' group 'Karawane Salzburg' from his earliest childhood on. Further commitments have been to leading roles at the theatres in Salzburg, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Koblenz. Leading roles in cinema and TV films, 10 years at Reichenau Festival, productions for radio and readings of his own programmes underline the versatility of Dangl's artistic work. • Michael Dangl has already published two novels: Rampenflucht (2010) and Schöne Aussicht Nr. 16 (2012). In the 2013/14 season, Michael Dangl is acting in Wie im Himmel in the Theater in der Josefstadt and in Ziemlich beste Freunde in the Kammerspiele der Josefstadt. • The flautist Maria Fedotova, a graduate of St. Petersburg Conservatoire (1996) in a class held by Professor A.Vavilina-Mravinski, began her studies of music at the age of 5 and performed her first solo concert with the chamber orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre at the age of 8 and in duo with her father, the flautist Vladimir Fedotov. She has performed with the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Yuri Temirkanov, the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev etc. She has co-operated with such eminent musicians as Gidon Kremer, Juri Baschmet, Tatjana Gri