Peter Ruzicka

Last updated

Peter Ruzicka (born 3 July 1948) is a German composer and conductor of classical music. He was director of the Hamburg State Opera, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hamburg and the Salzburg Festival. Ruzicka was managing director and Intendant of the Salzburg Easter Festival and is professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. The list of his compositions includes numerous orchestral and chamber music works as well as the opera "Celan", about the poet Paul Celan, which was premiered in Dresden in 2001. [1] His opera "Hölderlin" had its premiere at the Berlin State Opera in 2008. [1] Ruzicka's third opera "Benjamin", about the philosopher Walter Benjamin, was written in 2015/16 for the Hamburg State Opera and premiered in 2018. [2] [1]

Contents

Biography

Ruzicka was born in Düsseldorf. He received his early musical training (piano, oboe and composition) at the Hamburg Conservatory. He studied composition with Hans Werner Henze and Hans Otte. He studied law and musicology in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin (interdisciplinary doctoral thesis: Die Problematik eines "ewigen Urheberpersönlichkeitsrechts", Berlin, 1977). [3] [4] [5]

Ruzicka was artistic director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1987 and indendant of the Hamburg State Opera and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hamburg from 1988 to 1997. [6] Moreover, he was Artistic Advisor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam from 1997 to 1999. In 1999 he was named President of the Bavarian Theatre Academy. From 2001 to 2006, Ruzicka took over the Artistic Directorship of the Salzburg Festival. [4] Ruzicka served as artistic director of the Munich Biennale between 1996 and 2014. [4] He took over from Hans Werner Henze, and was succeeded by the dual directorship of Manos Tsangaris and Daniel Ott. Ruzicka was managing director and Intendant of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2015 to 2020. [7] [8]

Ruzicka was appointed professor for cultural management at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in 1990. [4] The composer is member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and of the Free Academy of Arts in Hamburg. [9]

Ruzicka's works have been performed by leading international orchestras and ensembles like the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Munich, German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Philharmonia Orchestra London, Orchestre de Paris, Czech Philharmony, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra Montréal and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductors like Gerd Albrecht, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Gielen, Paavo Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Kurt Masur, Antonio Pappano, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Christian Thielemann have performed his works.

As a conductor Ruzicka has directed the German Symphony Orchestra in Berlin  – recording CD productions of works by Mahler, Pettersson and Schreker  – the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg – recording a cycle of 12 orchestral works by Henze –, and the Munich Philharmonic amongst others. Ruzicka has also conducted three CDs of music by George Enescu for the cpo label.

Works

Ruzicka's works are published by Hans Sikorski. [10]

Stage

Orchestra

Concertante

Chamber music

Vocal

Piano

Honors and awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruno Walter</span> German-born conductor, pianist, and composer (1876–1962)

Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the United States in 1939. He worked closely with Gustav Mahler, whose music he helped to establish in the repertory, held major positions with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others, made recordings of historical and artistic significance, and is widely considered to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugen Jochum</span> German conductor

Eugen Jochum was a German conductor, best known for his interpretations of the music of Anton Bruckner, Carl Orff, and Johannes Brahms, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Werner Henze</span> German composer (1926–2012)

Hans Werner Henze was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfgang Rihm</span> German composer and academic teacher (born 1952)

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rolf Liebermann</span> Swiss composer and music administrator

Rolf Liebermann, was a Swiss composer and music administrator. He served as the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera from 1959 to 1973 and again from 1985 to 1988. He was also Artistic Director of the Paris Opera from 1973 to 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aribert Reimann</span> German composer, pianist and accompanist

Aribert Reimann is a German composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of Shakespeare's King Lear, the opera Lear, was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who sang the title role. His opera Medea after Grillparzer's play premiered in 2010 at the Vienna State Opera. He was a professor of contemporary Lied in Hamburg and Berlin. In 2011, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for his life's work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dmitri Smirnov (composer)</span> Russian composer

Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov was a Russian-British composer and academic teacher, who also published as Dmitri N. Smirnov and D. Smirnov-Sadovsky. He wrote operas, symphonies, string quartets and other chamber music, and vocal music from song to oratorio. Many of his works were inspired by the art of William Blake.

Richard Blackford is an English composer.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noam Sheriff</span> Israeli composer, conductor, educator and arranger

Noam Sheriff was an Israeli composer, conductor, educator and arranger. Sheriff was one of Israel’s most versatile and world-renowned musicians. He was Artistic Director of Israel Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra (1973-1982); Music Director of the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion (1989-1995); Professor of Composition and Conducting at the Tel Aviv University's Samuel Rubin Academy of Music since 1990 and the Academy's director ; Artistic Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra (2002-2005); and Artistic Director of the Haifa Symphony Orchestra (2004-2013).

Johannes Wolfgang Zender was a German conductor and composer. He was the chief conductor of several opera houses, and his compositions, many of them vocal music, have been performed at international festivals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toshio Hosokawa</span> Japanese composer

Toshio Hosokawa is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music and culture. He has composed operas, the oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima, and instrumental music.

Marios Joannou Elia, is a Cypriot composer and artistic director. He was the youngest director in the history of the European Capital of Culture (2013–15). He is ambassador in tourism of the Republic of Cyprus. Since 2016 he has been the director of the large-scale project "Sound of Vladivostok", on behalf of Zarya Foundation, in Russia; from January 2018, director of "Sound of Kyoto", on behalf of Kyoto City and Kyoto Arts and Culture Foundation after an invitation of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans-Jürgen von Bose</span> German composer

Hans-Jürgen von Bose is a German composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johannes Maria Staud</span> Austrian composer (born 1974)

Johannes Maria Staud is an Austrian composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jörg Widmann</span> German composer, conductor and clarinetist

Jörg Widmann is a German composer, conductor and clarinetist. In 2018, Widmann was the third most performed contemporary composer in the world. Formerly a clarinet and composition professor at the University of Music Freiburg, he is composition professor at the Barenboim–Said Akademie. His most important compositions are the two operas Babylon and Das Gesicht im Spiegel, an oratorio Arche, his string quartets and the concert overture Con brio. Widmann wrote musical tributes to Classical and Romantic composers. He was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Michael Beyer</span> German composer

Frank Michael Beyer was a German composer.

Miroslav Srnka is a Czech composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Willi</span> Austrian composer

Herbert Willi is an Austrian composer of classical music, whose orchestral works, concertos and chamber music have been performed internationally and also recorded. Willi composed an opera, Schlafes Bruder, for the Opernhaus Zürich.

Stephen Douglas Burton is an American composer.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Werke Peter Ruzicka" (PDF). sikorski.de. Hamburg: Hans Sikorski. 8 July 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  2. 1 2 Goldmann, A.J. (24 June 2018). "Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin Don't Talk. They Sing". The New York Times . New York City. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  3. Reuter, Stephanie (13 July 2019). "Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Peter Ruzicka". hfmt-hamburg.de (in German). Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Hinterberger, Julia (February 2015). "Peter Ruzicka" (PDF). Arbeitsschwerpunkt Salzburger Musikgeschichte an der Abteilung für Musikwissenschaft der Universität Mozarteum. Salzburg: Universität Mozarteum. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  5. "Peter Ruzicka". Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung (in German). Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 Schmidt, Dörte (2001). "Ruzicka, Peter". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-1-56159-263-0.
  7. "Peter Ruzicka appointed Intendant and Managing Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival as of 1 July 2015". Osterfestspiele Salzburg. 1 July 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  8. "Peter Ruzicka will step down as Intendant in 2020". Osterfestspiele Salzburg. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  9. 1 2 "Peter Ruzicka". Biografie WHO'S WHO (in German). Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  10. "Composers Works: Ruzicka, Peter". Sikorski Music Publishers (in German). 23 July 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "Peter Ruzicka – The Living Composers Project". Home – The Living Composers Project. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  12. "Reply to a parliamentary question" (PDF) (in German). p. 1760. Retrieved 22 November 2012.

Sources