composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
. From 1990 to 1997 he was
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of the
University of Music and Theatre Leipzig
The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig) is a public university in Leipzig (Saxony, Germany). Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn ...
.
Life
Born in
Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...
Thiele was born the son of a craftsman. Already at the age of twelve he created his first compositions. He had music lessons with Werner Hübschmann and Gustav William Meyer and took part in the studio choir of the Volksbühne Chemnitz, directed by Paul Kurzbach.
After his
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
in 1952 at the Thiele studied
musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...
Johannes Weyrauch Johannes Weyrauch (20 February 1897 − 1 May 1977) was a German composer and cantor.
Life Childhood
Weyrauch was born on 20 February 1897 in Leipzig. His mother, Maria Große, who had received a thorough musical education and worked in several ...
from 1953 to 1958, conducting with
Franz Jung
Franz Josef Johannes Konrad Jung (26 November 1888, Neisse, Upper Silesia – 21 January 1963, Stuttgart) was a writer, economist and political activist in Germany. He also wrote under the names Franz Larsz and Frank Ryberg.
He grew up in Neisse ...
and
Heinz Rögner
Heinz Rögner (16 January 1929 – 10 December 2001) was a German conductor. He was born in Leipzig.
Rögner was a student of Hugo Steurer (piano), Egon Bölsche (conducting) and Otto Gutschlicht (viola). From 1947 to 1951, he was a repetite ...
Amadeus Webersinke
Amadeus Webersinke (1920-2005) was a German pianist and organist.
Webersinke studied from at the Institut für Kirchenmusik in Leipzig with Karl Straube, Johann Nepomuk David, and Otto Weinreich (pianist), Otto Weinreich. He was a lecturer at t ...
at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. From 1958 to 1962 he was teacher as well as choir and orchestra conductor at the music schools in
Radeberg
Radeberg is a small town in the district of Bautzen, Saxony, Germany. It is located approximately 20 kilometres north-east of Dresden. The town has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and an old castle.
History
Radeberg was mentioned ...
and
Wurzen
Wurzen () is a town in the Leipzig district, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Mulde, here crossed by two bridges, 25 km east of Leipzig, by rail N.E. of Leipzig on the main line via Riesa to Dresden. It has a cathedral dating ...
. From 1959 he performed his chamber music, symphonic and choral symphonic works at home and abroad. Since that time he has also been active in the Leipzig congregation of
The Christian Community
The Christian Community (german: Die Christengemeinschaft) is an esoteric Christian denomination. It was founded in 1922 in Switzerland by a group of ecumenically oriented, mainly Lutheran theologians and ministers led by liberal theologian Frie ...
as a musician and composer for liturgical and other works.
From 1960 to 1962 Thiele studied composition with Leo Spies at the
Academy of Arts, Berlin
The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany.
The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...
. In 1962 he began teaching composition and score playing at the Leipzig Academy of Music and in 1963 founded the Leipzig Youth Symphony Orchestra, which he directed until 1978. From 1971 to 1999 he was a
lecturer
Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...
(from 1984
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
) for composition at the Leipzig Academy of Music. Among his students were
Bernd Franke
Bernd Franke (born 12 February 1948) is a German former footballer who played as a goalkeeper.
Also an outfield player in his youth, young Bernd Franke made his steps towards the professional game following his impressiveness in the ranks of Sa ...
,
Walter Thomas Heyn
Walter Thomas Heyn (born 14 November 1953) is a German guitarist, composer and music producer.
Life
Born in Görlitz, Heyn was initially musically self-taught. From the age of fourteen he played guitar and performed in singing clubs. From 1974 ...
Steffen Schleiermacher
Steffen Schleiermacher (born Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Halle, 3 May 1960) is a German composer, pianist, and conducting, conductor.Neues Gewandhaus zu Leipzig on 8 October 1981, Thiele created the great commissioned work ''Gesänge an die Sonne'' for alto and tenor solo, organ, choir and orchestra. It was premiered in the opening concert under the direction of the then
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics.
History
The first Gewandhaus (''Altes Gewandhaus'')
The fi ...
Kapellmeister
(, also , ) from German ''Kapelle'' (chapel) and ''Meister'' (master)'','' literally "master of the chapel choir" designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term ha ...
Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur (18 July 1927 – 19 December 2015) was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Or ...
, who wanted the new large organ of the Gewandhaus to be appropriately included in this composition. Thiele took the texts from the ''Prolog im Himmel'' from Goethe's
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...
,
Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...
's poem ''An die Sonne'' and Hölderlin's ''Dem Sonnengott''. Only after Masur's intervention was this play allowed to be performed at all at the opening, since the Zentralkomitee der SED did not like the texts.
On 1 October 1990 Thiele took office as the newly elected Rector of the Academy of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. In 1994 he was re-elected in this function for another three years.
Since 1992 he has been a member of the , from 1996 of the
Sächsische Akademie der Künste
The Sächsische Akademie der Künste (Saxon Academy of Arts) is a German cultural organisation for the state of Saxony, based in Dresden.
Purpose
The Academy is a statutory corporation to promote the arts in Saxony, make proposals for its prom ...
in Dresden. In 1999 he was guest of honour at the
Villa Massimo
Villa Massimo, short for Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo ( it, Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo), is a German cultural institution in Rome, established in 1910 and located in the Villa Massimo.
The fellowship of the German Academy in Rom ...
in Rome. In 2001 he was appointed Honorary Senator of the Academy of Music and Theatre Leipzig.
Awards
* 1965:
Mendelssohn Scholarship
The Mendelssohn Scholarship (german: Mendelssohn-Stipendium) refers to two scholarships awarded in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Both commemorate the composer Felix Mendelssohn, and are awarded to promising young musicians to enable them to co ...
* 1966: für Musik
* 1979:
Kunstpreis der Stadt Leipzig
From 1959 to 1989, the city of Leipzig awarded the Kunstpreis der Stadt Leipzig, which was given for outstanding merits in the artistic field to persons who promoted the reputation of the city beyond the region: architects, visual artists, compos ...
* 1983:
Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic
The Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic (German: ''Kunstpreis der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik'') was an East German state award bestowed on individuals for contributions in various fields of art.
History
The Art Prize was annually a ...
* 2002:
Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony
The Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony (german: Sächsischer Verdienstorden) is a civil order of merit, and the highest award of the German state of Saxony. First presented in 1997, it is awarded by the Minister-President of Saxony. The ...
* ''Thiele, Prof. Siegfried.'' In Wilfried W. Bruchhäuser: ''
Komponisten der Gegenwart
The ''Komponisten der Gegenwart'' (KDG) is a music encyclopedia in German language about composers of the 20th and 21st century. It is a looseleaf service with information on currently about 900 composers.
Editors
Hanns-Werner Heister and Walter ...
in the Deutschen Komponisten-Interessenverband. Ein Handbuch.'' 4th edition . Deutscher Komponisten-Interessenverband, Berlin 1995, , .
* ''Prof. Siegfried Thiele zum 70. Geburtstag.'' In Journal ''Zeitschrift der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig'', Supplement to no. 17, summer semester 2004, in which among others:
** : ''Botschaft der Töne. Botschaft der Worte. Der Komponist Siegfried Thiele.''
**
Gesine Schröder
Gesine Catharina Magdalene Schröder (born 1957) is a German musicologist and music theorist. She taught music theory at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig from 1992 and has taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna sin ...
: ''
Machaut
Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...
Riemann Musiklexikon
The Riemann Musiklexikon (RML), is a music encyclopedia founded in 1882 by Hugo Riemann. The 13th edition appeared in 2012.
History
The Riemann Musiklexikon is the last undertaking of an individual to write a comprehensive encyclopedia in the fi ...
.'' CD-Rom, Directmedia Publishing, Berlin 2004, , .
* Christiane Niklew, Thiele, Siegfried In ' 5th edition. Vol. 2, Ch. Links, Berlin 2010,