Jakob Ullmann (born 12 July 1958 in Freiberg, East Germany) is a German composer and university professor. He is the son of theologian and politician Wolfgang Ullmann.
After refusing to undergo military service in East Germany, Ullmann worked as groundskeeper, boilerman and house painter from 1978 until 1982 in Dresden. From 1979 until 1982 he studied church music in Saxony. Being denied official enrollment in Berlin's Academy of Fine Arts, he studied composition privately with Friedrich Goldmann.
Since the early 1980s he has been working as a freelance composer and author of self-published writings, as well as teaching classes at different universities on New Music, mediaeval music, history of Byzantine music as well as music philosophy. His first major presentation in concert was in East Berlin in 1986, receiving positive reviews as well as a first official publishing deal for his string quartet's score in print. [1] In 1988 a work by Ullmann saw its first performance in West Germany when Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler guested at the Donaueschingen Festival. [2]
Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer and academic teacher. He is musical director of the Institute of New Music and Media at the University of Music Karlsruhe and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival. He was honoured as Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001. His musical work includes more than 500 works. In 2012, The Guardian wrote: "enormous output and bewildering variety of styles and sounds".
Friedrich Goldmann was a German composer and conductor.
Udo Zimmermann was a German composer, musicologist, opera director, and conductor. He worked as a professor of composition, founded a centre for contemporary music in Dresden, and was director of the Leipzig Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He directed a contemporary music series for the Bayerischer Rundfunk and a European centre of the arts in Hellerau. His operas, especially Weiße Rose, on a topic he set to music twice, have been performed internationally, and recorded.
Maki Ishii was a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music, and brother of composer Kan Ishii.
Wilhelm Killmayer was a German composer of classical music, a conductor and an academic teacher of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München from 1973 to 1992. He composed symphonies and song cycles on poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, Joseph von Eichendorff, Georg Trakl and Peter Härtling, among others.
Georg Katzer was a German composer and teacher. The last master student of Hanns Eisler, he composed music in many genres, including works for the stage. Katzer was one of the pioneers of electronic new music in the German Democratic Republic and the founder of the first electronic-music studio in the GDR. He held leading positions in music organisations, first in the East, then in the united Germany, and received many awards, including the Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic, the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German Music Authors' Prize.
Hans-Jürgen von Bose is a German composer.
Günter Kochan was a German composer. He studied with Boris Blacher and was a master student for composition with Hanns Eisler. From 1967 until his retirement in 1991, he worked as professor for musical composition at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". He taught master classes in composition at the Academy of Music and the Academy of Arts, Berlin. He was also secretary of the Music Section of the Academy of Arts from 1972 to 1974 and vice-president of the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR from 1977 to 1982. Kochan is one of eleven laureates to have been awarded the National Prize of the GDR four times. In addition, he received composition prizes in the US and Eastern Europe. He became internationally known in particular for his Symphonies as well as the cantata Die Asche von Birkenau (1965) and his Music for Orchestra No. 2 (1987). His versatile oeuvre included orchestral works, chamber music, choral works, mass songs and film music and is situated between socialist realism and avant-garde.
Mark Andre is a French composer living in Germany. He was known as "Marc André," his birth name, until 2007, when he formally revised the spelling. He lives in Berlin. Andre's compositions durch (2006), ...auf... III (2007), and Wunderzaichen (2014) received multiple votes in a 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000.
Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler was an ensemble of musicians founded in 1970 in Leipzig with a focus on contemporary classical music, which played several world premieres and toured internationally. The ensemble disbanded in 1993.
Tilo Medek, originally Müller-Medek, was a German classical composer, musicologist and music publisher. He grew up in East Germany, but was inspired by the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. He composed radio plays and incidental music. His setting of Lenin's Decree on Peace led to restrictions, and after he showed solidarity with the expatriated Wolf Biermann, he also had to move to the West, where he composed an opera Katharina Blum based on Heinrich Böll's novel, and worked in education. He received international awards from 1967 on.
Rolf Riehm is a German composer who wrote stage and orchestral works as well as music for ensembles and solo instruments. He began as an oboist and music teacher and was later a professor of music theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main for several years.
Fred K. Prieberg was a German musicologist. He was a pioneer in the field of history of music and musicians under the Nazi regime.
Gösta Neuwirth is an Austrian musicologist, composer and academic teacher. He studied in Vienna and Berlin, where he wrote a dissertation on harmony in Franz Schreker's Der ferne Klang. He has taught at universities and music schools including the Musikhochschule Graz, University of Graz, Universität der Künste Berlin and University of Freiburg. His compositions include a string quartet and a chamber opera.
Hanns-Werner Heister is a German musicologist.
Thomas Christoph Heyde is a German composer, media artist and curator. He is chairman of the Forum Zeitgenössischer Musik Leipzig.
Paul-Heinz Dittrich was a German composer and academic teacher. Based in East Berlin, he focused on chamber music, with many works inspired by poetry. His works were performed earlier in the West than in the East. He was an influential composer of contemporary music in Germany who taught internationally, including in the United States, Israel, and Korea.
Christfried Schmidt is a German composer and arrangeur.
Michael Svoboda is an American composer and trombonist who lives and works in Switzerland.
Siegfried Borris was a German composer, musicologist and music educator. He became a lecturer at the Musikhochschule Berlin in 1929, but his career was interrupted during the Nazi regime. He was appointed professor in 1945 and became an influential pedagogue, composer of music for young players, and active in music organisations. He was president of national associations, of Deutscher Tonkünstlerverband from 1963 to 1972, and of Deutscher Musikrat from 1971 to 1976.