Werner von Trapp

Austrian-American singer from a noted family, as the second-oldest son of Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp. He was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives inspired the 1959 Broadway musical and the 1965 Academy Award-winning Best Picture The Sound of Music. In the film he was portrayed by Duane Chase as the character "Kurt". In the film The Trapp Family (1956) and The Trapp Family in America (1958) he was portrayed by Michael Ande.

After studying music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (cello) in the 1930s, he also learned composition and arrangement. He sang tenor in the Trapp family choir. The Trapp family fled to the United States in 1938 after the annexation of Austria and began a successful stage career there. After the family retired from the stage, von Trapp founded the Community School of Music in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Werner von Trapp became a naturalized American citizen and fought for the U.S. in the 10th Mountain Division Army during World War II in Italy. He then became a dairy farmer in Waitsfield, Vermont.

He lived 58 years with his wife, the Salzburg agricultural technician Erika von Trapp (16 January 1922 - 18 January 2018), a childhood friend of his sister Martina, whom he married in 1948, and was the grandfather of Sofia, Melanie, Amanda and Justin, the current line-up of the Trapp Family Singers, who performed as The von Trapp Children and The von Trapps between 2001 and 2016 and often collaborated with Pink Martini.