Respected singing teacher, vocal coach and accompanist, he is also an active chamber musician. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, he studied piano with contemporary music specialist Jo Boatright and famous Mozart interpreter Lili Kraus at the Texas Christian University.
Having graduated with highest honours, he realized that his strongest interest was in the human voice and decided to dedicate his career to working with singers. He has collaborated with the Fort Worth Opera, the opera houses of San Francisco and Stuttgart as well as the Accademia Verdiana Carlo Bergonzi in Busseto, Italy, where he has taught side by side with Renata Tebaldi and Carlo Bergonzi himself.
Fundling’s students, who include world-famous tenor Piotr Beczała, brilliant mezzo-soprano Katharine Goeldner and the new Sieglinde of the Bayreuth Festival, Edith Haller, perform on the world’s leading opera stages, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Milan’s La Scala, London’s Covent Garden, the Chicago Lyric Opera, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and the San Francisco Opera as well as the most prestigious festivals, such as the events in Salzburg, Baden-Baden and Bayreuth. They work with famous conductors, to mention Nicolas Harnoncourt, Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Bertrand de Billy and Valery Gergiev. Fundling’s students have also won top prizes in the competitions in Marmande, Toulouse and Geneva, the Mario Lanza Competition, Vienna’s famous Belvedere and many other contests.
Fundling’s performances, in which he has accompanied many great artists from all over the world, have been broadcast on radio and television in Korea, Japan, the United States, Austria and Germany. He has also taught master classes in Europe, Asia and the United States.
After more than twenty years working with the Mozarteum in Salzburg, today Fundling mainly gives private lessons at his own studio and travelling around the world.
