Thomas Demenga (born 12 June 1954) is a Swiss composer and cellist.
Life and career
Born in Bern, Demenga studied with Walter Grimmer,
Antonio Janigro,
Leonard Rose
Leonard Joseph Rose (July 27, 1918 – November 16, 1984) was an American cellist and pedagogue.
Biography
Rose was born in Washington, D.C.; his parents were Jewish immigrants, his father from Bragin, Belarus, and his mother from Kyiv, ...
and
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was wel ...
and at the
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...
in New York, among others. He gives concerts as a
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
ian and soloist at all important festivals and music centres of the world. Since 1980, Demenga has been leading a training and
soloist class at the
Hochschule für Musik
A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger ins ...
. From August 2001, Demenga was
artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
of the Davos Festival ''young artists in concert'', which he directed for the last time in 2006.
At the Summer 2003
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music and presents a series of classical music festivals based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, it current ...
, Demenga performed as ''artiste étoile''. An extensive series of CD recordings, published by
ECM, documents his artistic work. In 2002, the last CD of his recording of Bach's solo suites in combination with works by contemporary composers such as
Heinz Holliger
Heinz Robert Holliger (born 21 May 1939) is a Swiss virtuoso oboist, composer and conductor. Celebrated for his versatility and technique, Holliger is among the most prominent oboists of his generation. His repertoire includes Baroque and Classic ...
,
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra- ...
,
Sándor Veress
Sándor Veress (, – ) was a Swiss composer of Hungarian origin. He was born in Kolozsvár/Klausenburg, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire, nowadays called Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and died in Bern. The first half of hi ...
,
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (20 March 1918 – 10 August 1970) was a German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera ''Die Soldaten'', which is regarded as one of the most important German operas of the 20th century, after those of Berg. As a ...
,
Isang Yun
Isang Yun, also spelled Yun I-sang (17 September 1917 – 3 November 1995), was a Korean-born composer who made his later career in West Germany.
Early life and education
Yun was born in Sancheong (Sansei), Korea under Japanese rule, Chōsen ...
and
Toshio Hosokawa
is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music and culture. He has composed operas, the oratorio ''Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima' ...
was released. Several of his recordings have been awarded the
Vierteljahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.
He performs in concerts with fellow musicians such as Heinz Holliger,
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer ( lv, Gidons Krēmers; born 27 February 1947) is a Latvian classical violinist, artistic director, and founder of Kremerata Baltica.
Life and career
Gidon Kremer was born in Riga. His father was Jewish and had survived the Holoc ...
,
Thomas Larcher
Thomas Larcher (born 16 September 1963, in Innsbruck) is an Austrian composer and pianist.
Biography and Work
Thomas Larcher completed his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna under Heinz Medjimorec and Elisabeth Leonsk ...
,
Paul Meyer,
Aurèle Nicolet
Aurèle Nicolet (22 January 1926 – 29 January 2016) was a Swiss flautist. He was considered one of the world's best flute players of the late twentieth century.
He performed in various international concerts. A number of composers wrote music ...
,
Hansheinz Schneeberger
Hansheinz Schneeberger (16 October 1926 – 23 October 2019)Thomas Zehetmair
Thomas Zehetmair (born 23 November 1961) is an Austrian violinist and conductor.
Biography
Zehetmair was born in Salzburg, and studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum, where both of his parents taught. His festival debut was at age 16. He was in mas ...
and
Tabea Zimmermann
Tabea Zimmermann (born 8 October 1966) is a German violist.
Born in Lahr, she began learning to play the viola at the age of three, and commenced piano studies at age five. At the age of 13, she studied viola with Ulrich Koch at the Conservator ...
. Demenga has worked with conductors like
Moshe Atzmon
Moshe Atzmon ( he, משה עצמון, born 30 July 1931) is an Israeli conductor.
He was born Móse Grószberger in Budapest, and at the age of thirteen he emigrated with his family to Tel Aviv, Israel. He started his musical career on the hor ...
,
Myung-Whun Chung,
Charles Dutoit
Charles Édouard Dutoit (born 7 October 1936) is a Swiss conductor. He is currently the principal guest conductor for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia and co-director of thMISA Festival in Shanghai In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of th ...
,
Claus Peter Flor
Claus Peter Flor (born 16 March 1953, Leipzig) is a German conductor.
Flor studied violin and clarinet at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Zwickau. He continued his music studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar and the HMT Felix ...
,
Howard Griffiths, Heinz Holliger,
Armin Jordan
Armin Jordan (9 April 1932 – 20 September 2006) was a Swiss conductor known for his interpretations of French music, Mozart and Wagner.
Armin Jordan was born in Lucerne, Switzerland. "Mr. Jordan was a large man, with a slab of a face and a ful ...
,
Okko Kamu
Okko Tapani Kamu (born 7 March 1946, Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and violinist.
Kamu was born into a family of musicians. His father played double bass in the Helsinki Philharmonic. He began violin studies at age two a ...
, Rostropovich,
Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies (born April 16, 1944 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American conductor and pianist, He is currently the music director and chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic.
Biography
Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard Sch ...
,
Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch (26 August 1923 – 22 February 2013) was a German conductor and pianist.
Biography
Wolfgang Sawallisch was born in Munich, the son of Maria and Wilhelm Sawallisch. His father was director of the Hamburg-Bremer-Feuerversich ...
,
Sándor Végh Sándor Végh (17 May 19126 January 1997) was a Hungarian, later French, violinist and conductor. He was best known as one of the great chamber music violinists of the twentieth century.
Education
Sándor Végh was born in 1912 in Kolozsvár, Tr ...
,
Mario Venzago and
Hiroshi Wakasugi
was a Japanese orchestra conductor. He premiered many of the major Western operas in Japan, and was honoured with many awards for cultural achievement. He was best known for conducting works by German composers such as Richard Wagner, Anton Br ...
.
He devotes himself especially to
Neue Musik
Neue Musik (English ''new music'', French ''nouvelle musique'') is the collective term for a wealth of different currents in composed Western art music from around 1910 to the present. Its focus is on compositions of 20th century music. It is char ...
and also deals with improvisation. Thus his own musical language as a composer and interpreter of 20th and 21st century works (including many world premieres) forms a new and complementary dimension to the historical performance practice of
Baroque music
Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transiti ...
and his interpretations of the classical and romantic repertoire. He also represents these interests as
artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
, since 2011, of the chamber orchestra .
In 1991, Demenga was the first Swiss composer to be awarded first prize at the
International Rostrum of Composers The International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) is an annual forum organized by the International Music Council that offers broadcasting representatives the opportunity to exchange and publicize pieces of contemporary classical music. It is funded by c ...
in Paris for his work "solo per due" for two violoncellos.
Thomas Demenga
on Tarisio
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Demenga, Thomas
Swiss cellists
Swiss composers
Juilliard School alumni
1954 births
Living people
People from Bern