Johannes Maria Staud
*17 August 1974
Works by Johannes Maria Staud
Biography
born 17th August 1974 – Innsbruck/Austria
1994–2001 – composition studies at the Vienna Musikhochschule with Michael Jarrell (composition), Dieter Kaufmann (electro accoustic composition), Iván Eröd (harmony and counterpoint) and with Hanspeter Kyburz at the 'Hanns Eisler-Hochschule für Musik' in Berlin;
Masterclass with Brian Ferneyhough and Alois Pinos;
Studies in Philosophy and Musicology;
Co-founder of the composers group 'Gegenklang' in Vienna
1999/2000 – Fellowship of the Alban Berg Stiftung
2000 – Publishing contract with Universal Edition;
First Prize of Hanns Eisler Kompositionswettbewerb Berlin
2001 – Special music prize from the Austrian Republic
2002 – Composition Award from the Salzburger Osterfestspiele
2003 – International Rostrum of Composers 2003: First Price for Polygon (category: composers under 30 years)
2003/2004 – Fellowship of the Foundation Heinrich Strobel, SWR Freiburg/D
2004 – Grant Winner of the Ernst-von-Siemens-Musikstiftung
2005 – Premiere of Apeiron for Large Orchestra with
Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in Berlin
2006 – Austrian State Composers' Scholarship;
First performance of Segue for Violoncello and Orchestra with Vienna Philharmonic, Heinrich Schiff and Daniel Barenboim at Salzburg Festival (Opening Concert);
Featured guest-composer at Tanglewood Music Festival
2007–2009 – Daniel Lewis Young Composer Fellowship of the Cleveland Orchestra
2009 – Paul Hindemith-Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival
Prize for Contemporary Music of the state Tyrol, Austria
2010 – World premiere of Contrebande (On Comparative Meteorology II) (Ensemble Modern Orchestra, cond. Peter Eötvös)
World premiere of Über trügerische Stadtpläne und die Versuchungen der Winternächte (Dichotomie II) (RSO Wien, Arditti Quartet, cond. Emilio Pomárico)
2011 – Capell-Compositeur at the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden
World premiere of Tondo for orchestra (Staatskapelle Dresden, cond. Christoph Eschenbach)
World premiere of Celluloid for bassoon (Joachim Hans, bsn)
World premiere of Der Riß durch den Tag for speaker and ensemble (Bruno Ganz, speaker; Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, cond. Asher Fisch)
World premiere of Tableaux Vivants (PHACE | contemporary music, cond. Simeon Pironkoff)
2012 – World premiere of Maniai (SO des Bayerischen Rundfunks, cond. Mariss Jansons)
World premiere of Le Voyage (Ensemble Intercontemporain, Cris de Paris, cond. Geoffroy Jourdain)
World premiere of Infin che ’l mar fu sovra noi richiuso at the Salzburger Festspiele 2012
Music Award of the City of Vienna
2013 – World premiere of the new version of Par ici! (Ensemble Intercontemporain, cond. George Benjamin)
World premiere of Fugu for kids orchestra (Mozart Kinderorchester, cond. Marc Minkowski)
World premiere of K'in for bassoon and string quartet (Pascal Gallois, bsn; Hugo Wolf Quartett)
2014 – composer-in-residence at the Lucerne Festival: World premiere of the opera Die Antilope on 3 September 2014
2015/2016 - visiting professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
2016 - World premiere of Par là by the Ensemble Intercontemporain
2016 - Awarded the Innsbruck State Capital Prize for Artistic Creation on 6 May in the category music
2016 - Received the Coup de Coeur des Jeunes Mélomanes for Oskar (Towards a Brighter Hue II)
since 2018 - Professorship for composition at the Salzburg Mozarteum
2022 - Austrian Art Prize for Music
Performances:
Australia, Austria (amongst others: Wiener Festwochen, Konzerthaus Wien (Wien modern, Hörgänge), Musikverein Wien, Salzburg Festival, Salzburg Easter Festival, musikprotokoll Graz, Klangspuren Schwaz, Bregenz Festival, Tiroler Festspiele Erl), Belgium (Ars Musica Brussels, Transit Festival Leuven), Germany (amongst others: Berliner Festspiele, Biennale Munich, Musiktriennale Cologne, Philharmonie Berlin, Konzerthaus Berlin, Philharmonie Cologne, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Oper Heidelberg, Kammermusiktage Witten, Eclat Festival Stuttgart, Ultraschall Festival Berlin, Darmstadt Ferienkurse), Estonia, Finland (Musica Nova), France (amonst others: Paris (Festival Présences, Cité de la Musique), Musica Strasbourg), Great Britain (amonst others: Barbican Centre, CBSO-Centre, Huddersfield Festival, Maida Vale-Studios, Wigmore Hall), Italy (a.o.: Venice Biennale, Taiettore Festival Parma), Japan (a.o. Suntory Symphony Hall Tokyo), Canada, Croatia, Cuba, Latvia (Arena Festival), Lituania (Gaida Festival), Netherlands (a.o.: Gaudeamus Festival), Norway, Poland (Warsaw Autumn), Portugal (Casa de Musica), Russia, Switzerland (a.o.: Europäischer Musikmonat Basel, Archipel Festival Geneva), Slowenia, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, USA (a.o.: Cleveland, Tanglewood, New York, Miami, Spoleto Festival), Venezuela.
Orchestras:
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, SWR-Symphonieorchester Baden-Baden/Freiburg, WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne, Symphony Orchestra Bavarian Radio, Radio-Symphonieorchester Vienna, Holland Symphonia, New World Symphony Orchestra, NHK Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Heidelberg Symphonic Orchestra, Ljublijana Symphony Orchestra, Prague Chamber Philharmonic.
Ensembles:
ASKO-Ensemble, Avanti!Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble 20. Jahrhundert, Klangforum Wien, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Remix Ensemble Porto, die reihe, Scharoun-Ensemble Berlin, Tiroler Ensemble für Neue Musik, Tokyo Sinfonietta, Windkraft Tirol, WDR-Chor Köln.
Soloists:
amongst others: Korbinian Altenberger, Valdine Anderson, Irvine Arditti, Matthias Bundschuh, Uwe Dierksen, Marino Formenti, Viviane Hagner, Richard Haynes, Roger Heaton, Petra Hoffmann, Hugo Wolff-Quartett, Nina Janßen, Otto Katzameier, Kläring Quartett, Piia Komsi, Ernst Kovacic, Katja Lämmermann, Thomas Larcher, Jenny Lin, Jan Michiels, Dorothee Mields, Ernesto Molinari, Hiroshi Nagao, Heikki Nikula, Keisuke Okazaki, Harald Ossberger, Ian Pace, Jonathan Powell, Heinrich Schiff, Martin Schwab, Anne-Carolyn Schlüter, Caroline Stein, Tamara Stefanovich, Petra Stump, Mário Teixeira, Nicole Tibbels, Marteen Van Veen, Anika Vavic, Marcus Weiss, Carolin Widmann, Christine Whittlesey.
Conductors:
amongst others: Stefan Asbury, Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand de Billy, Michael Boder, Martyn Brabbins, Peter Burwik, Sylvain Cambreling, Dennis Russell Davies, Sian Edwards, Mark Foster, Beat Furrer, HK Gruber, Johannes Kalitzke, Peter Keuschnig, Roland Kluttig, James MacMillan, Diego Masson, Andris Nelsons, Franck Ollu, Roland Peelman, Emilio Pomarico, Sir Simon Rattle, Kasper de Roo, Henrik Schäfer, Dmitri Slobodeniouk, Ed Spanjaard, Markus Stenz, Pierre-André Valade, Jürg Wyttenbach, Franz Welser-Möst, Lothar Zagrosek, Noam Zur.
About the music
Johannes Maria Staud was born in Innsbruck, Tyrol, on 17 August 1974. However, nothing would be further from the truth than to call him a ‘Tyrolian composer’. In no way is he a provincial figure – in fact, ever since he joined Universal Edition in 2000, at the age of 26, he has become one of the most successful composers of his generation, with prestigious commissions from some of the greatest orchestras and festivals in the world.
Staud and his publisher have every reason to be proud that Sir Simon Rattle has asked him for a composition for the Berlin Philharmonic (Aperion, 2004/2005), that the Salzburg Festival commissioned a cello concerto from him to be premiered as part of celebrating the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth in 2006 (Segue, 2006). Heinrich Schiff was the soloist, Daniel Barenboim conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. The Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst gave the first performance of On Comparative Meteorology (2009) and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra have received the score they have commissioned for string quartet and orchestra (On Deceptive City Maps and the Temptations of Winter Nights. Dichotomie II). Riccardo Chailly premièred it with the Gewandhaus String Quartet.
Such lists could eventually become tiresome and perhaps smack of publicity, but they do give an indication of the extent to which Staud’s music has found widespread recognition on the highest level. To cite one more example: the Staatskapelle Dresden has appointed him capell compositeur for the 2010/2011 season. He is to write three new works for the orchestra and its principal conductor, Fabio Luisi.
Let us take a look at those titles once again: Apeiron was inspired by ideas of Leonardo da Vinci and the Greek philosopher Anaximander. In Segue, Staud has orchestrated a Mozart fragment for violoncello and piano and succeeded brilliantly not only in making it sound genuine Mozart but also in finding a transition to his own music which gives the listener goose-pimples. On Comparative Meteorology and On Deceptive City Maps and the Temptations of Winter Nights conjure up the world of Bruno Schulz, the Polish-Jewish writer and graphic artist whose writings have deeply impressed the Austrian composer. Finally: Dichotomie II is a reference to the string quartet of the same title (1997/1998). Staud rarely resorts to the method of taking an early piece and re-working it to produce a new one; it is more usual for him to create a series of compositions where the Roman figures (such as Incipit III. Esquisse retouchée II for trombone solo, 2 horns, 3 percussionists and string orchestra) inform one of its links to earlier pieces of the cycle.
Staud is an avid reader and draws inspiration from world literature. He is also an appreciative and sensitive observer of the contemporary art scene (with Bruce Nauman among those who have directly influenced him; cf. Violent Incidents. Hommage à Bruce Nauman for saxophone solo, wind ensemble and percussion, 2005/2006. Film is for him also an art form capable of awakening musical ideas (Black Moon for bass clarinet, 1998, was inspired by Louis Malle’s film of the same title) – the list could be continued indefinitely.
Staud has shaken off early enough the supposed expectations of the music world for a young composer to write in an 'avant-garde' style. Neither does he look back at his predecessors to produce pieces easy on the ear, to please conservative audiences. He has found an idiom all his own marked by meticulous work on the large form as well as on the tiniest details (his beautifully written scores are a faithful mirror of this); he takes a long time over each new composition and is its most critical listener at the premiere. His acute self-criticism has led to some revised versions, such as Segue or One Movement and Five Miniatures for harpsichord, ensemble and electronics.
Johannes Maria Staud’s compositions have all cleared that most difficult hurdle of all: having a second performance. In fact, his music is being taken up by soloists, new music ensembles, chamber groups and orchestras all over the world (including the Far East) so that a tradition of interpretation is in the making – a sign that Staud’s music could be here to stay.
