Wolfgang Rihm

Member of the Honorary Committee

The well-known weekly "Die Zeit” once wrote of the German composer Wolfgang Rihm: "Between late romantic gesture and expressive charge, Rihm listens to voices within himself, where it is not especially comfortable, as he has sometimes remarked himself.” Rihm has so far written over 200 works, including many orchestral compositions, operas, ensemble pieces, string quartets and songs.

Since 1985, he has been a professor of composition at the Karlsruhe Academy of Music, succeeding his teacher Eugen Werner Velte. He is a member of the Academies of Arts in Berlin, Munich and Mannheim as well as the German Academy of Language and Literature in Darmstadt. In 1989, Rihm received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 2003, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.

(March 2006)