York Höller

York Höller (; born 11 January 1944) is a German composer and professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. Biography Höller was born in Leverkusen. Between 1963 and 1970 he studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohr and Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral conducting with Wolfgang von der Nahmer. Parallel to this, he studied musicology and philosophy at the University of Cologne. He did further musical studies at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt with Pierre Boulez, and in 1967 sat his examination in music education. Höller was active for a short time as a répétiteur at the Staatstheater Bonn. At the Electronic Music Studio of WDR in 1971–72, he “continued his studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen” or, alternatively, “was given the chance, at Stockhausen’s invitation, to realize works of his own”. In any case, the technique he developed at this time—a form of extended serialism which he calls “Gestalt composition”—bears a resemblance to the older composer’s formula composition, and in 1982 Höller dedicated his orchestral work Schwarze Halbinseln to Stockhausen. He qu