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Instrumentation

Jörg Birkenkötter (*1963)

“Jörg Birkenkötter's music reveals something akin to a breakdown or pulverization of form, including the overall formal design. As the work proceeds to interrupt itself – or perhaps we should use the word ,shatter' – it calls itself into question.

All the same, this breakdown of form also brings about a new florescence of musical shapes that have not yet hardened into convention, or at least have nothing discernibly conventional about them.” (Hans-Peter Jahn, 1997)

Photo © by Charlotte Oswald, Wiesbaden

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1963

Born in Dortmund, Germany, on 19 May

1982-1989

Studies at the Folkwanghochschule in Essen: composition with Nicolaus A. Huber, piano with Detlef Kraus and Catherine Vickers

1989/90

Studies at the Künstlerhof Schreyahn with a fellowship from the state of Lower Saxony

1990-1994

Specialized training in composition with Helmut Lachenmann at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart

since 1990

Teacher of music theory at the Musikhochschule in Dortmund

1994/95

Fellowship holder of the Villa Massimo in Rome

2002

Fellowship holder of the "Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia", Bamberg

2002/03

Subsitute professor at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt/Main

2005

Guest professor at Hansei University in Seoul Conducts master class for composition at Yonsei University in Seoul

2006

Lecturer at the Young Composers' Forum of the German Society for Contemporary Music (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neue Musik)

since 2011

Professorship for composition at the Bremen Musikhochschule

Career

Numerous awards, including the Beethoven Prize (Bonn), the Gaudeamus Composition Prize, the Schneider-Schott Music Prize Performances at many festivals and in many concert series in Germany and abroad, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hanover, Melbourne, Munich, New York, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Stuttgart, Warsaw, Witten, Zurich

Writings by Jörg Birkenkötter

nEUeMusik in NRW/NL, Text für ein Seminar in Bilthoven/NL, Oktober 1999

Neue harmonische Prozessverläufe in Nicolaus A. Hubers Pour les Enfants du paradis, in: MusikTexte Heft 108 (Februar 2006), S. 42-46

[Text zur Umfrage: Das neue Jahrzehnt], in: Musik und Ästhetik, Heft 61 (Januar 2012), S. 6f

Boulez heute, in: MusikTexte, Heft 149 (Mai 2016), S. 76

In die Zukunft weiterdenken. in memoriam K. H. [Nachruf auf Klaus Huber], in: MusikTexte, Heft 155 (November 2017), S. 65f


Writings on Jörg Birkenkötter

Jahn, Hans-Peter: "... das Material aushorchen ...". Einige Bemerkungen zur Musik von Jörg Birkenkötter, in: Portrait-CD Wergo WER 6536-2
Klötzke, Ernst-August: Der Klang hinter dem Klingenden - zur Musik von Jörg Birkenkötter, Januar 1995, Ms.
Zwenzner, Michael: Inmitten von fremden Klängen. Jörg Birkenkötter wurde Gaudeamus-Preisträger, in: neue musikzeitung 1992, Heft 6


Radio Portraits

Ehrler, Hanno: Schwebende Form. Der Komponist Jörg Birkenkötter, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Erstsendung 12. März 2001
Jörg Birkenkötter - im Gespräch mit Carolin Naujocks, Erstsendung DeutschlandRadio Berlin, 25. Juli 1994

in nomine (1999)
für Ensemble
Ms.