Walter Zimmermann
Walter Zimmermann ( born April 15, 1949 in Schwabach ) is a German composer, author and university professor.
Life and work
Early learned Zimmermann piano, violin and oboe. The age of twelve he began to compose, visited the Humanistic Gymnasium in Fürth and studied piano with Ernst Gröschel. From 1968 to 1970 he was a pianist in the ars nova ensemble in Nuremberg and began to study composition with Werner Heider. In 1970 he moved to the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht and was until 1973 the ethnological center Jaap Art in Amsterdam operates.
In 1974 he went to America, where he studied computer music in Hamilton. Here was released in 1976 his first book, Desert Plants, which was joined by recordings of folk music in the oasis of Siwa, in a ghetto in Pittsburgh, and on an Indian reservation in Montana. After returning to Germany, he organized concerts in the Beginner Studio, a former factory building in Cologne. For his work he received, among other things, the 1980 Award of the City of Cologne and in 1981 the first prize Ensemblia Mönchengladbach. After he had published in 1981 his second book, island music, he was in 1982 and 1984 as a lecturer in Darmstadt and at the same time from 1980 to 1984 as a teacher of composition at the Conservatoire de Liège active.
In 1985, when his third book Morton Feldman Essays was published, he moved to Berlin and Rome. Here he received the 1988 Prix Italia for the work of the blind and in the same year took up a teaching post at The Hague on Koninglijk Conservatorium. At the same time, he worked in Frankfurt and received in 1989 the Schneider-Schott Music Prize Mainz. From 1990 to 1992 he worked as a teacher of composition at Karlsruhe and organized at this time in Frankfurt together with Stefan Schaedler the festival Anarchic Harmony, the 80th birthday of John Cage.
Since 1993 he has been professor of composition at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin, since 1996 also professor of June in Buffalo (USA) and 2003 Visiting Professor ( one academic year ) at the ESMUC ( Musikhochschule ) Barcelona. In 2005 he also took the place of a Lecturer Julliard School at Columbia University in New York. He is also a lecturer at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares in Spain, 2006 Lecturer at the Shanghai Conservatory and the Beijing Central Conservatory and since 2006 a member of the Academy of Arts. In 2007 he was composer in residence at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. 2009 Honorary professor of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.