Composer
Biography:
Michael Bastian Weiss has found his life theme in the diverse relationships between art and science, between music and philosophy. He lives as a composer and philosopher in Munich. Born in 1974 in Deggendorf, Lower Bavaria, he first studied musicology in Munich and graduated with a master's thesis on medieval author theory. For his doctorate, which took place in 2004, he switched to philosophy.
At the same time he studied composition and in 2005 he received his artistic diploma and in 2007 his master class diploma. As a philosopher, Michael Bastian Weiß is a student of Günter Zöller, as a composer of Hans-Jürgen von Bose. In addition to encyclopedia articles and essays on philosophical, musicological and literary topics, Michael Bastian Weiß published, among other things, the aesthetic-theoretical study The Author as an Individual. The turn to the subject in philosophy and art of the 18th century (Hildesheim 2007). He teaches philosophy in Munich and Eichstätt and is currently pursuing a habilitation project on JG Fichte's late theoretical philosophy.
His compositional work includes vocal and instrumental chamber and orchestra music as well as music theater. While he was still a student, his opera project Maybe I was an Aztec, which turned the case of the cannibalistic serial killer into a large-scale music theater and for which he wrote the libretto himself, received an award from the First International Opera Workshop at Rheinsberg Castle and parts of it were performed. This was followed by commissions for compositions from the ADevantgarde Festival, the Siemens Kulturstiftung and the ›les muséiques‹ Basel festival.
Weiß was a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, received the Deggendorfer Kulturpreis and the music scholarship of the state capital Munich. In the jury's statement, the ability for "extraordinary creative approaches" was particularly emphasized: "The pieces repeatedly deal with archaic or archetypal structures and seek their mirror images in today's societies. From the encounter with existential fringe areas, with bloodthirsty, cruel, insane, sexually alien or grotesque forms of existence, his works draw the tension in content, which then finds its echo in a layered, quotation-like musical language«.
Works (selection)
Namely when the vine juice. Aria after Friedrich Hölderlin (1996–2000); nicholas Autopoietic entertainment and funeral music for solo cello and small orchestra (1997); Petite Symphonie Parisienne for flute, violin and celesta (1997/2002); Fragmenta Missarum pro Defunctis for solo piano and large orchestra (2000/2001); The Philosophy of Angels and Beavers. Symphonic melodramas after Lichtenberg for speakers and instruments (2003); malafrantz. Ensalada for mezzo-soprano and Renaissance instruments (2003); Pentatomy for clarinet/bass clarinet, cello and piano (2004); Maybe I was an Aztec. Opera (since 2002). Apparition of Jupiter for orchestra (2005); Sonata on Darkness for harpsichord solo (Symphony No. 2, 2006); Urworte, thaletisch for flute, piano, percussion and speaker (2008)
Albums:
Fragmenta Missarum pro Defunctis - Sonata on Darkness:
