Opera Scotland

Annette Laubach Suggest updates

Annette Sophie Mercy Laubach.

Born Edinburgh 1859.

Died 1934.

Scottish mezzo-soprano.

Annette Laubach was the daughter of Heinrich Conrad Laubach, a well-known Edinburgh musician who had emigrated from Germany around 1850, with his two brothers, who were also musical.

Her older brother Franklin was a professional cellist, who left Scotland for Canada in 1904, and later organised a musical society that developed into the Regina Symphony Orchestra. Annette had two younger brothers. Hugo was a poet and played the violin and viola. Herbert was a flautist who trained at the Royal Academy of Music.  Her elder sister Elizabeth was also a singer, first with Carl Rosa then with the Burns-Crotty Opera Company, before dying of typhoid at the age of nineteen.

In 1893 Annette married Henri Vandermeerschen, a well-known horn player with the Carl Rosa orchestra. His extensive concert career included the first performance in Britain of the Brahms Horn Trio, in which he was accompanied by Mr Charles Hallé (piano) and Madame Norman-Neruda (violin). The future Sir Charles and Lady Hallé. were famous recitalists, touring widely outside the regular seasons of their Hallé Orchestra.

The Vandermeerschens had two daughters, Thérèse (born 1894) and Ella (born 1897).   The family lived in London, where Henri pursued his career as an orchestral player.  They both died in 1934. 

Source: Penny Powell (great grand-daughter of Franklin Laubach).

Amended: 9 December 2012.