Heinz Winbeck

Heinz Winbeck (11 February 1946 – 26 March 2019) was a German composer, conductor and academic teacher. He is known for five large-scale symphonies, which he programmatically subtitled, such as “Tu Solus” and “De Profundis”. As a composition teacher in Würzburg, he shaped a generation of students. Career Winbeck was born on 11 February 1946 was awarded the OPUS Klassik in the category “world premiere recording” in 2020; it also been nominated in the categories “symphonic recording of the 20th / 21st century” and “editorial performance of the year”. Symphonies Winbeck revived the genre of the symphony, motivated by the need for existential expression. He composed five large-scale symphonies between 1983 and 2011, comparable to the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. By giving them titles, he reflected topics such as history as a sequence of wars and cruelty, the guilt of the generation of his parents, endangered ecology, the loneliness of humanity in the cosmos, and facing near-death. Winbeck’s First Symphony was premiered in 1984 at the Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik and recorded by WERGO, combined with Winbeck’s second string quartet, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Rundfun