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Vojtěch Hřímalý (junior)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Vojtěch Hřímalý (30 July 1842 in Plzeň – 15 June 1908 in Vienna) was a composer, violinist, and conductor from Austria-Hungary. He is the older brother of the violinist Jan Hřímalý. Life Vojtěch Hřímalý came from a musical family. His father and all his siblings were musicians. He studied at the Prague Conservatory. After finishing school, he became concertmaster of the Rotterdam Opera Orchestra. A year later, he moved to Gothenburg, where, in addition to the opera orchestra, he worked as an organist and, after Bedřich Smetana, conducted public concerts. In 1868, he returned to Prague and became concertmaster and director of the Provisional Theatre Orchestra. After disagreements with the theatre management, he moved to the German Theatre in Prague, where he worked as second conductor. He became chairman of the Philharmonic Society and, with his brothers Jan, Bohuslav and Jaromír, founded the Hřímalý Brothers String Quartet. In November 1872, he played in the first performance of Antonín Dvořák’s first Piano Quintet at an event organised by Ludevít Procházka. In 1874, he went to Černovice in what was then Bukovina (today in Ukraine), where he was active in many different fields. He

Volker Bräutigam

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volker Bräutigam (23 May 1939 – 31 May 2022 ) was a German composer, and church musician. Life and career Bräutigam was born in the village of Frohnau in southeast Germany. From 1949 and 1953 he sang with the Dresdner Kreuzchor, at that time under the direction of Rudolf Mauersberger. In 1957 he entered the Musikhochschule Leipzig and remained there until 1962 studying composition under Johannes Weyrauch as well as conducting, piano, organ, and film music. After completing his studies he worked for the next two years as an assistant organist and a free-lance composer for the animation department of the East German film studio DEFA. In 1962 he succeeded Johannes Weyrauch as cantor at the in Leipzig, a post he would hold for over 30 years. In the 1980s and early 90s he also taught organ and composition at the Evangelische Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Halle. He was appointed professor of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig in 1993. Bräutigam’s compositions, which are primarily choral and organ music, are stylistically diverse. The critic for Westdeutsche Zeitung described his Epitaph for Maximilian Kolbe as “a work of surprising sounds, melodic lines, and chords, a piece that t

Volker David Kirchner

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volker David Kirchner (25 June 1942 – 4 February 2020) * Die Trauung (The Wedding, 1974) after Witold Gombrowicz, premiered 27 April 1975, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden * Die fünf Minuten des Isaak Babel, Szenisches Requiem in zwölf Bildern (1977–79), premiered 19 April 1980 at the Opernhaus Wuppertal * Das kalte Herz / Ein deutsches Märchen after Wilhelm Hauff (1980), premiered 1981 in Wiesbaden, revised in 1987 for a performance on 27 October 1988 at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz * Belshazar (1986); commissioned by the Bayerische Staatsoper, premiered on 25 January 1985 * Erinys, Threnos in two parts after the Oresteia by Aeschylos (1986–89), premiered on 15 April 1990 in Wuppertal * Inferno d’amore (Shakespearion I) after Shakespeare and Michelangelo (1992), staged premiere on 12 March 1995, Ballhof by Niedersächsisches Staatstheater * Labyrinthos (Shakespearion II) (1994/95), premiered 17 October 1997 in Mainz for the opening of the Kleines Haus of the Staatstheater Mainz * Gilgamesh (2002), commissioned by the Niedersächsische Staatsoper on the occasion of the EXPO 2000, premiered on 20 May 2000 * Ahasver, scenic oratorio (1998–2000), commissioned by the Theater Biele

Volker Ignaz Schmidt

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volker Ignaz Schmidt (born 1971 in Leonberg, Germany) is a composer of contemporary music. Volker Ignaz Schmidt started composing in 1986 and has been a member of different rock and jazz bands playing piano, keyboards, trumpet as well as song writing. He has been studying harmony, counterpoint, form and orchestration since 1993. Since 1995 he has studied composition privately with Franklin Cox (University of Maryland, USA), Bernd Asmus (Freiburg, Germany), Jan Kopp (Stuttgart, Germany) and John Palmer (composer) (University of Hertfordshire, England). In 2001 he started composing his own music. Volker Ignaz Schmidt has composed solo works, chamber music, vocal pieces, orchestral music and conceptual music. He has written piano textbooks and he worked in school projects on contemporary music. Schmidt has written music for the Solisten, the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Franklin Cox, the Art Ensemble Berlin, the Trio Mondala, the duo Christine Simolka/René Wohlhauser and the Frankfurter Tonkünstlerbund. Some of his pieces have been published by the Simon Verlag Berlin and the Bellmann Verlag Halle. His works have been performed in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, France, UK,

Volker Straebel

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volker Straebel (born 1969) is a German musicologist and composer and performer of experimental music. Life Straebel grew up in Berlin (West) where he was born. He studied musicology, philosophy and library science at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Magister Artium). As music journalist, among others for Der Tagesspiegel (1996–2001) and the Berliner Seiten der Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2001–2002), he documented contemporary music and sound art in Berlin. In 2002–14 he was curatorial advisor to the festival MaerzMusik of the Berliner Festspiele. Between 2009 and 2014, he was head of the Electronic Studio at the Audio Communication Department of the Technische Universität Berlin. 2015 Straebel took over as head of the Master’s programme Sound Studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin, which he fundamentally reformed in 2017 as Sound Studies and Sonic Arts. In 2020, he was named Dean of The Herb Alpert School of Music and Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Since 2026 he has been the head of the music archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Straebel researches and publishes on

Volodymyr Dashkovsky

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Colonel Volodymyr Anatolievich Dashkovsky () also known as Vladimir Dashkovsky is a Ukrainian military conductor and composer who was the Senior Military Director of the Military Music Department of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (MMD-GSAFU) based in Kyiv. Biography Dashkovsky was born in the city of Cherkasy, in the central part of the Ukrainian SSR in early 1965. In 1987, he graduated with honors from the Moscow Conservatory in the RSFSR and afterwards, returned to Ukraine to conduct in the military bands Kyiv Military District until 1993. Once the KVO was disbanded, he conducted military bands in the Odesa Military District for 5 years until 1998. Upon his removal from the OVO, he formed the 7th Military Headquarters Band of the Northern Operational Command in Chernihiv, which would later become the Military Music Center of the Ukrainian Ground Forces in 2003. He quickly rose through the ranks of the department in the years after, before being appointed the Director of Music of the Military Music Department of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a position he served in from 2014-2023. During that period, he conducted the massed bands of the MMD-GSAF

Volodymyr Melnykov

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volodymyr Melnykov (; born September 14, 1951) is a Ukrainian poet, writer, songwriter, author of lyrics and music for songs, inventor, mathematician, composer and public figure, Merited Figure of Arts of Ukraine. Biography Volodymyr Melnykov was born on September 14, 1951 in the city of Chernivtsi. In 1974 – graduated from Minsk Higher Air Defense Anti-aircraft Missile Academy (Faculty of Radio Engineering). In 1982 – graduated with honors (gold medal) from Kiev Military Academy of Air Defense of the Land Forces (Faculty of Engineering Management). In 1987 – graduated from Kiev Military Academy of Air Defense of the Land Forces (he graduated from the postgraduate course and defended the dissertation of the candidate of technical sciences). In 1969–1991 – served in the Armed Forces of the USSR (Moscow Air Defense District; Northern Group of Forces, Legnica, Poland; Turkestan Military District, Mary). In 1991 he was awarded the military rank “Colonel” and the scientific title “Associate Professor”. Before the collapse of the USSR, he was a senior lecturer of the Kiev Military Air Defense Academy of the Land Forces. In 1992–1995 – served in the Verification Center of the General Staf

Volodymyr Runchak

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Volodymyr Petrovych Runchak () is a Ukrainian accordionist, conductor and composer who was born on June 12, 1960, in Lutsk where in 1979 he attended its music college. In 1984 he was a winner of the Republican Accordion Competition and the same year began studying conducting at the Kiev Conservatory where he also studied composing two years later. In 1988 he joined National Union of Composers of Ukraine and remained there till this day. He has conducted over 100 works which he performed in his native Ukraine, and then went to Kazakhstan and France. Currently he serves as a member of the New Music Association and is a founder of New Music Concert Series. Legacy Runchak wrote a numerous works for instruments and vocal. According to «Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung» V. Runchak found his personal balance between the stylistic and technological limitations and the new freedom. In his works one can hear the courage of the author’s expression which goes far beyond the limit of belonging to any composer’s school. Often, the avant-garde means are the only means for him. According to N. Krechko, the composer focuses on complex dissonant language, musical expression, innovative techniques asso