Composer
Biography:
FRIEDRICH CERHA was born in Vienna in 1926. From 1933 he had lessons in violin and from 1936, on his own initiative, in music theory and composition. In 1943 he offered active resistance for the first time as an air force helper, in 1944/45 he deserted twice from the German Wehrmacht and survived the end of the war as a hut keeper and mountain guide in Tyrol.
From 1946 to 1950 he studied at the Academy of Music (violin, composition, music education) and at the University (German studies, philosophy, musicology) in Vienna. He was in contact with avant-garde painters and writers around the Art Club and with the Schönberg circle in the IGNM. From 1956 to 1958 he attended the Darmstadt Summer Course and in 1958 he founded the ensemble »die reihe« with Kurt Schwertsik – as the first permanent forum for music of the avant-garde, the Viennese school and classical modern music in Austria. From 1959 he taught at the Vienna Music Academy, where he was professor for composition, notation and interpretation of new music from 1976 to 1988. In 1961 he began his extensive international activities as an orchestra conductor at renowned festivals and institutions of new music and at opera houses.
From 1962 he worked on the production of a playable version of the III. acts of the opera Lulu by Alban Berg (UA 1979 in Paris), who made the complete work accessible to the music world. His own musical theater work Network was premiered in 1981 at the Vienna Festival, the operas Baal at the Salzburg Festival (1981), The Pied Piper at the Steirischer Herbst (1987) and The giant from the stone field at the Vienna State Opera (2002).
Friedrich Cerha is a member of many international institutions for art and science. He has received numerous commissions for ensemble, choral and orchestral works as well as numerous prizes and honors, most recently in 2006 the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art, the Order »Officier des Arts et des Lettres«, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for his life's work, the Salzburg Music Prize 2011 and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2012.
Albums:
Donaueschingen Music Days 2014:
String Quartet Nos. 3 & 4 – Eight Movements after Hölderlin Fragments:
