Thomas Hertel (born 1951) is a German composer.

Life

Hertel was born in

Bad Salzungen Bad Salzungen () is a town in Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wartburgkreis district. Geography Location Bad Salzungen is situated on the river Werra, east of Tiefenort and south of Eisenach. Divisions In July 2018 the former m ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

. 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 the special branch for music in Wernigerode, Hertel studied

musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

in Halle from 1969 to 1973. Afterwards he was a master student for composition at the Academy of Arts, Berlin with

Siegfried Matthus Siegfried Matthus (13 April 1934 – 27 August 2021) was a German composer, conductor, and festival founder and manager. Some of his operas, such as '' Judith'', were premiered at the Komische Oper Berlin in East Berlin. In 1991, he founded the ...

. From 1974 to 1982, he was head of incidental music at the

Staatsschauspiel Dresden The Staatsschauspiel Dresden (State Playhouse Dresden) is a theatre in Dresden. It is maintained by the Free State of Saxony, hence its name. It consists of a main auditorium, the ' (play house), and a studio theatre, the '. It was created in 19 ...

and worked as a freelance composer and head of the Young Composers Section in the Dresden Composers' Association (commissioned operas ''Leonce and Lena'' and ''Till''). He received composition prizes in Halle and the

Hans Stieber Prize The Hans Stieber Prize is a promotional prize for composers of serious and light music, which is awarded by the fiduciary trust ''Hans Stieber Foundation'' of the ''Landesverband Sachsen-Anhalt '' based in Halle (Saale). The name giver and dedic ...

of the Radio of the GDR. After his compositional promotion (among others by the two Leipzig music publishers Peters and Deutscher Verlag für Musik), he was banned from working on and realising cross-genre projects. After leaving Germany in 1985 for artistic and cultural-political reasons, he devoted himself primarily to the realisation of musical-scenic projects; among them ''Cernunnos for 7 reed players, bulls and live electronics'' for the 1993

Donaueschinger Musiktage The Donaueschingen Festival (german: Donaueschinger Musiktage, links=no) is a festival for new music that takes place every October in the small town of Donaueschingen in south-western Germany. Founded in 1921, it is considered the oldest festiv ...

edition with the ; the opening installation for the 1996 Lucerne International Music Festival "aus der erde durch den wind" - a mobile open-air music for various wind, vocal and bell ensembles and the sound transport of natural sound samples, and in 1999 the cartoon opera ''Das Biest des Monsieur Racine'' after

Tomi Ungerer Jean-Thomas "Tomi" Ungerer (; 28 November 1931 – 9 February 2019) was an Alsatians (people), Alsatian artist and writer. He published over 140 books ranging from children's books to adult works and from the fantastic to the autobiographical. H ...

commissioned by the

Theater Basel Theater Basel is the municipal theatre of the city of Basel, Switzerland, which is home to the city's opera and ballet companies. The theatre also presents plays and musicals in addition to operas and operettas. Because the theatre does not ha ...

. In 1991, he received the Art Prize of the City of Munich for experimental theatre. He has held teaching posts at music academies and drama schools among others in Hamburg, Bochum, Frankfurt and Munich. He has realised numerous commissioned works, song recitals and theatre music for over 40 German-speaking theatres. From 2002 to 2008, he was head of incidental music at the ; there he created the experimental musical-scenic series ''mund & knie 1-12'', for which he was awarded the Leipzig Theatre Prize in 2009.Thomas Hertel
on landestheater-linz.

Awards

* 1982:

* 1982: Hanns Eisler Prize * 1991: Kunstpreis der Landeshauptstadt München * 2009: Leipziger Theaterpreis

References

External links

*
Thomas Hertel
on Nationaltheater Weimar
Thomas Hertel
im Archiv Zeitgenössischer Komponisten der

Saxon State and University Library Dresden The Saxon State and University Library Dresden (full name in german: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden), abbreviated SLUB Dresden, is located in Dresden, Germany. It is both the regional library (german: ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hertel, Thomas 20th-century German composers 20th-century classical composers 1951 births Living people People from Bad Salzungen