Widmann Jörg Widmann

Jörg Widmann (born 19 June 1973) is a German composer, conductor and clarinetist. He lives and works in Berlin. According to Bachtrack, Widmann was in 2018 the third most performed contemporary composer, behind Arvo Pärt and John Williams. In most of his compositions, he is in musical dialoge with Classical-Romantic composers, like Schumann, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

Education and career

Widmann was born in Munich and first took clarinet lessons in 1980. Four years later he became a composition student of Kay Westermann (born 1958), subsequently also studying with Hans Werner Henze, Wilfried Hiller [de], Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm. As a clarinetist, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and at the Juilliard School in New York City. After graduating with a Master's from Munich in 1997, he furthered his studies at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. From 2001 to 2015 he taught clarinet as a Professor at the University of Music Freiburg. Since 2009 Widmann has been a demi-Professor of Composition, succeeding Mathias Spahlinger [de], at the Institute for New Music at the University of Music Freiburg. Since 2017 Widmann has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Partner (2011–2017: Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Partner) of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Since 2017 Widmann has been the Edward-Said-Chair and professor of composition at the Barenboim–Said Akademie Berlin.

Musical works

Widmann has achieved success both as a clarinetist and as a composer. As a soloist, he has performed with major orchestras in Germany and abroad, including the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, under conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Christoph von Dohnányi, Sylvain Cambreling and Kent Nagano. Several clarinet concerti have been dedicated to Widmann and premiered by him: in 1999 through "musica viva", he played Music for Clarinet and Orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm, in 2006 with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cantus by Aribert Reimann, and in 2015 "über" by Mark Andre at the Donaueschingen Festival.

Widmann's compositions draw on different musical genres. He has composed, for example, a Trilogy for orchestra examining the projection of vocal forms of instrumental ensembles. The Trilogy consists of Lied (premiered in 2003 and recorded on CD by the Bamberg Symphony with Jonathan Nott), Chor (premiered in 2004 by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Kent Nagano) and Messe, premiered in June 2005 by the Munich Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann. In 2007 Pierre Boulez and the Vienna Philharmonic premiered his orchestral work Armonica.

His string quartets are of particular note among his chamber music works: the First String Quartet was written in 1997, and followed by Chorale Quartet and Hunting Quartet, premiered in 2003 by the Arditti Quartet. 2005 saw the first performances of the Fourth String Quartet and Experiment on a Fugue (Fifth String Quartet with soprano), with Juliane Banse and the Artemis Quartet.

Widmann was Composer in Residence at the Lucerne Festival in 2009, where he premiered on 5 September 2009 Heinz Holliger's Rechant for solo clarinet. His oboe concerto, commissioned by the Festival, was performed by Holliger on 13 August 2009. Widmann's music Free Pieces for Ensemble: Number X is used in Sophie Fiennes's documentary Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010), about the German post-war artist Anselm Kiefer. His études IV-VI for violin (2004–2010) were premiered by his sister Carolin Widmann at the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik on 23 April 2010. From 2009 to 2011 he was the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow at the Cleveland Orchestra. He performed his Fantasie for clarinet (1993) to celebrate the 80th birthday of Walter Fink at the Rheingau Musik Festival on 16 August 2010 and in 2014 he was the festival’s Composer & Artist in Residence. Widmann was the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich's Creative Chair in the 2015–16 season.

On 9 September 2015, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra announced they were commissioning a work from Widmann as part of a planned collaboration by the two organizations beginning in the fall of 2017. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra announced Widmann's appointment as its first-ever Gewandhauskomponist (Gewandhaus composer) for the 2017–18 season.

Widmann's oratorio ARCHE had its world premiere on 13 January 2017 on the occasion of the opening festivities of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. It was performed by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano. The Pierre Boulez Saal was opened on 4 March 2017 with a concert performed by Daniel Barenboim, Anna Prohaska and Widmann.

On 27 January 2018 Clarinet Quintet was played, as part of a European tour, in the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ in Amsterdam. It was performed by Widmann and the Hagen Quartet. Partita, five reminiscences for large orchestra, commissioned by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was premiered in Leipzig on 8 March 2018 with Andris Nelsons conducting.

Widmann is the holder of the 2019–2020 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall.

Awards

• 1996 Kulturförderpreis der Landeshauptstadt München
• 1997 Bayerischer Staatspreis für junge Künstler
• 1999 Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music from the Forberg-Schneider Foundation
• 2002 Hindemith Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival
• 2002 Schneider-Schott Music Prize
• 2003 Ernst von Siemens Composers' Prize
• 2003–2004 award of the magazine Opernwelt: "most important premiere of the season: Das Gesicht im Spiegel"
• 2004 Arnold Schönberg Prize
• 2006 Kompositionspreis of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg for Second Labyrinth
• 2006 Claudio-Abbado-Kompositionspreis of the Orchester-Akademie of the Berlin Philharmonic for Quintet for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano
• 2007 Christoph and Stephan Kaske Foundation Prize
• 2009 Stoeger Prize of the New York Chamber Music Society
• 2013 Heidelberger Frühling Music Award
• 2018 Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music Mainz
• 2018 Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art

Memberships

• 2005 Member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste.
• 2016 Member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz.

Works

Widmann's works are published by Schott Music.

• Absences, Schuloper (1990)
• Kreisleriana, concert piece for violin and chamber orchestra (1993)
• Fantasie for clarinet solo (1993)
• First String Quartet (1997)
• Five Fragments for clarinet and piano (1997)
• Nocturne for piano, clarinet and cello (1998)
• Fever Fantasy for piano, string quartet and clarinet (with bass clarinet) (1999)
• Implosion for orchestra (2001)
• Light Study I for orchestra (2001)
• ad absurdum for trumpet and small orchestra (2002)
• Free Pieces for ensemble (2002)
• Toccata for piano (2002)
• Second String Quartet (Chorale Quartet) (2003)
• Hall Study for piano (2003)
• Das Gesicht im Spiegel (The Face in the Mirror), opera in 16 scenes, libretto by Roland Schimmelpfennig (2003)
• Third String Quartet (Hunting Quartet) (2003)
• Lied for orchestra (2003)
• Chor for orchestra (2004)
• Skeleton for percussion (2004)
• Light Studies (I-VI) for violin, viola, accordion, clarinet, piano and orchestra (2004)
• Fourth String Quartet (2005)
• Experiment on a Fugue (Fifth String Quartet with soprano) (2005)
• Messe for full orchestra (2005)
• Air for horn solo (2005)
• Labyrinth for 48 chordophones (2005)
• Elegy for clarinet and orchestra (2006)
• Echo-Fragments for clarinet and orchestral group (2006)
• Second Labyrinth for orchestral group (2006)
• Armonica for glass harmonica and orchestra (2007)
• Violin Concerto (2007)
• Con brio for orchestra (2008)
• Antiphon for orchestral group (2008)
• Oboe Concerto (2009)
• Flûte en suite for flute and orchestral group (2011)
• Babylon, opera in 7 scenes, libretto by Peter Sloterdijk (2012)
• Third Labyrinth for soprano and orchestral groups (2013–2014)
• Trauermarsch for piano and orchestra (2014)
• Viola Concerto (2015)
• Once upon a time..., five pieces in fairy-tale style for clarinet, viola and piano (2015)
• ARCHE, oratorio for soloists, choirs, organ and orchestra (2016)
• Sonatina facile for piano (2016)
• Clarinet Quintet (2017)
• Partita, five reminiscences for large orchestra (2017–2018)
• Violin Concerto No. 2 (2018)