Georg Katzer
Georg Katzer ( born January 10, 1935 in Habelschwerdt, Silesia ) is a German composer. He was one of the pioneers of electronic new music in the GDR.
Life
Katzer was born in 1935 the son of a pastry-cook in Lower Silesia. He passed his Abitur at the boarding school Schloss Wendgräben. He studied 1953-1959 piano, music theory and composition with Rudolf Wagner- Régeny and Ruth Zechlin on the East Berlin Academy of Music. From 1957 to 1958 he studied with Karel Janacek at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. From 1961 to 1963 he was a master student of Hanns Eisler, Ruth Zechlin and Leo Spies at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin.
Since 1963 he has been a freelance composer and musician in Berlin. From 1966 to 1967 he was music dramaturg at the Erich -Weinert- ensemble of the NVA of the GDR. He has collaborated with artists such as Johannes "Hannes" Bauer, Wolfgang Fuchs, Paul Lytton, Phil Minton, Ernst- Ludwig Petrovsky, Radu Malfatti, Phil Wachsmann and Wind Ensemble Berlin.
In 1976, he stayed in the Studio for Electronic Music in Bratislava and in 1977 in Bourges / France on. In 1978 he was elected member of the Academy of Arts in East Berlin. In 1982 he founded the music department of the Academy of Arts Affiliate Studio for Electroacoustic Music, its artistic director until 2005.
In 1986 he was a visiting professor at Michigan State University. In 1987 he was appointed professor and taught in the sequence a master class in composition at the Academy of Arts. He is a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin -Brandenburg, Free Academy of the Arts Leipzig Academy of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges / France.
Until 1989, he was Vice President of the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR. From 1988 to 1991 he was president of the CIME the German section (International Association for Electroacoustic Music ), 1990 President of the Music Council of the German Democratic Republic and from 1990 to 2001 member of the board of the German Music Council.
Katzer now lives in Zeuthen near Berlin.
To Katzer's compositions include works for chamber ensemble, orchestral works, concertos, operas, ballets, puppet shows and oratorios. His work also includes electroacoustic pieces, radio plays music, multimedia projects and projects with improvised music.
Works (selection)
Operas, radio plays, inter alia,
- The hedgehog stairs for speaker and 13 instruments. Text: Sarah Kirsch, 1973.
- The country Bum -Bum. Opera, 1973.
- Black birds. Ballet, 1975.
- Scene for chamber ensemble. Instrumental Theatre, 1975.
- A new Midsummer Night's Dream. Ballet, 1979.
- Banquet or about love. Opera, libretto by Gerhard Müller, 1987.
- Antigone or the city. Opera, libretto by Gerhard Müller, 1989.
- My 1989th radio composition, 1990.
- I am another. Radio play by Arthur Rimbaud, 1990.
- L' homme machine. multimedia scenic action, 2000.
- Medea in Corinth. Oratorio scenes Libretto: Christa Wolf (after Medea: Stimmen). Premiere September 6, 2002, the Konzerthaus Berlin.
- String Quartets: No. 1 ( 1965), No. 3 (1987 ) and No. 4 tempi fragili (2004) - premiere 2010 by the Sonar Quartett Berlin.
Commissioned works
Katzer composed the following works commissioned the Wind Ensemble Berlin:
- Concerto for Harpsichord and wind quintet, " coming and going "
- " La Mettrie or comments to the machine - man"
- " La Mettrie or comment to the plant people "
- " Il re pastore " based on texts of Friedrich II