Jörg Widmann


Jörg Widmann is a German composer, conductor and clarinetist. He lives and works in Berlin and Munich. His music is in part inspired by Classical and Romantic composers. Widmann was in 2018 the third most performed contemporary composer.

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, subsequently also studying with Hans Werner Henze,, Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm. As a clarinetist, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Gerhard Starke and at the Juilliard School in New York City with Charles Neidich. 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. From 2009 to 2016 Widmann was a demi-Professor of Composition, succeeding Mathias Spahlinger, at the Institute for New Music at the University of Music Freiburg. Since 2017 Widmann has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Partner of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Since 2017 Widmann holds the Edward-Said-Chair as Professor of Composition at the Barenboim–Said Akademie Berlin.

Musical works and performances

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, Chor 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 early 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, with Juliane Banse and the Artemis Quartet. These five one-movement quartets form a cycle.
Widmann was Composer in Residence at the Salzburg Festival in 2004, and 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, about the German post-war artist Anselm Kiefer. His études IV-VI for violin 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 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 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.
Anne-Sophie Mutter is the dedicatee of String Quartet No. 6, composed in 2019. With this piece, Widmann began a new series of works in this genre. Widmann was the holder of the 2019–2020 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall.
During the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, Widmann contributed to the online Festival of New Music with his composition empty space. The Festival in the empty Pierre Boulez Saal was curated by Daniel Barenboim and Emanuel Pahud.

Music

In most of his compositions, Widmann is in musical dialogue with Classical-Romantic composers, like Schumann, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. He uses extended techniques. Widmann composed pieces without any pitches and also pure tonal pieces.
According to Bachtrack, Widmann was in 2018 the third most performed contemporary composer, behind Arvo Pärt and John Williams.

Awards

Widmann's works are published by Schott Music.

Writings

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