Walter Zimmermann (born 15 April 1949) is a German composer associated with the
Cologne School.
Born in
Schwabach, Germany, Zimmermann studied
composition in Germany with
Werner Heider
Werner Heider (born 1 January 1930) is a German composer, pianist and conductor.
Life
Born in Fürth, Heider studied with Willy Spilling in Nuremberg and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich between 1945 and 1951. From 1949, h ...
and
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer.
Biography
Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...
, the theory of musical intelligence at the
Institute of Sonology The Institute of Sonology is an education and research center for electronic music and computer music based at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the Netherlands.
Background
The institute was founded at Utrecht University in 1960 under the n ...
in
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
(now located in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
), and
computer music
Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ap ...
at
Colgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theologi ...
in New York.
Zimmermann's works are infused by a personal adaptation of
minimal technique. Whereas many early American minimalist composers were influenced in their works by
rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, and
world musics, Zimmermann has drawn a great deal of inspiration from his
Franconia
Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch'').
The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...
n heritage. A number of his works, particularly his groups of pieces known as ''Lokale Musik'', use the traditional music of this area as source material. These works frequently begin with melodic material derived from Franconian folk songs, which are rearranged and transformed in novel ways.
In 1976, Zimmermann published a collection of interviews with American musicians and composers entitled ''Desert Plants: Conversations With 23 American Musicians.''
References
* Zimmermann, Walter (1976). ''Desert Plants: Conversations With 23 American Musicians.'' Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada:
A. R. C. Publications.
External links
Walter Zimmermann page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zimmermann, Walter
20th-century classical composers
21st-century classical composers
German classical composers
1949 births
Living people
German male classical composers
20th-century German composers
21st-century German composers
20th-century German male musicians
21st-century German male musicians
People from Schwabach