Composer
Biography:
| York Hoeller was born in Leverkusen and studied in Cologne from 1963 to 70, e.g. with Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Herbert Eimert and Alfons Kontarsky. Participation in Pierre Boulez's analysis seminars at the Darmstadt Summer Courses in 1965 encouraged him to engage with serial music. After a temporary stint at the Bonn Opera, he worked at the WDR Studio for Electronic Music in 1971/72, where he was artistic director from 1990 to 2000. A series of works characterized by the synthesis of instrumental/vocal and electronic or computer-generated sounds made Höller internationally known in the 1970s. Höller's special connection to French musical life began in 1978 with an invitation to perform at the Paris IRCAM, which culminated in the successful premiere of Der Meister und Margarita at the Opéra de Paris in 1989, which won awards from French theater and music critics. In the 1980s Höller also completed a number of purely acoustic pieces, of which the First Piano Concerto and the orchestral work Magical Sound Shape are among the most frequently performed. He taught for many years in Cologne as well as in Freiburg, England and Finland. In 1993 he was appointed professor of composition at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and in 1995 at the Cologne Academy of Music. Höller has received numerous awards and many works have been commissioned by prominent figures, such as Fanal for the Ensemble InterContemporain, Aura for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or Gegenklänge for the Ensemble Modern. In 1999, on the occasion of the move of the German Bundestag to Berlin, Höller composed the orchestral work Aufbruch. More recently he has written The Eternal Day for choir, orchestra and electronics (2002), Klangzeichen for piano and wind instruments (2003), Feuerwerk for 16 instrumentalists (2004), Vanishing Points for flute, cor anglais, clarinet, piano and percussion (2006) and das Orchestral piece Spheres (UA 2008 by the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln conducted by Semyon Bychkov), for which he received the renowned Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2010. In addition to numerous other international composition commissions, scholarships, guest lectureships and awards, Höller was honored by being included in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic. He has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts since 1991 and a member of the Free Academy of Arts in Hamburg since 2006. A book about the composer was published for his 60th birthday in the »Musik der Zeit« series. |
Albums:
Topic – Horizon – Myth – Black Peninsulas:
