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NEOS 11518CD
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2010 Grawemeyer Award winner York Höller is here presenting his String Quartets (and more), played by the famous Minguet Quartett (Cologne), and Markus Bellheim (piano-professor and Vice President at Munich Musikhochschule). Among the composers of the middle generation in Europe, Höller is one of the most original and unconventional - an artist who has never let himself be appropriated by schools and aesthetic dogmas. Already early on he critically explored serial music and aleatoric and stochastic models of composition, took up impulses from the philosophical and scientific approaches to information and Gestalt theory, and developed from them his concept of "Gestalt composition", which also owes important aspects of inspiration to the Indian raga and the Arabian maqam techniques, and above all to medieval isorhythms. The Minguet Quartet, founded in 1988, is today one of the most internationally sought-after string quartets and gives guest performances in all the great concert halls of the world. They were awarded the coveted ECHO Klassik in 2010 for the complete SACD recording of Peter Ruzicka's string quartets (NEOS 10822-3CD). Markus Bellheim has been attracting attention as one of the most interesting and versatile pianists of his generation, at the latest since winning the International Messiaen Competition 2000 in Paris. His extensive concert activities have led him through all of Europe, to Asia and America.
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NEOS 11039CD
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Sphären for large orchestra and live electronics (2001 - 2006) performed by 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Der ewige Tag for mixed chorus, large orchestra andlive electronics (1998 - 2000, rev. 2002) performed by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, WDR Rundfunkchor Köln/Semyon Bychkov. "With his orchestral cycle Sphären (Spheres), composer York Höller created a large-scale work that bundles together the literary, artistic, and personal experiences of the past decades like in a magnifying glass. Spheres consists of six 'sound images' of different character, of which the first five were written during the years 2001 to 2005; after the death of his wife, Ursula Höller-Heidemann, in January 2006, Höller added the concluding sixth movement and dedicated the music 'in love and gratitude' to the deceased. By giving names both to the cycle as well as the individual movements, the composer brings into play an evocativeness on the level of the titles that reflects some of the stimuli and impulses for the creation of the work. York Höller studied composition in Cologne with B.A. Zimmermann and Herbert Eimert, and piano with Alfons Kontarsky, on top of his studies in music education and musicology. He received important impulses from Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, having frequently worked at Boulez's IRCAM institute in Paris. His oeuvre encompasses an opera (The Master and Margarita, premiered in 1989 in Paris), orchestral works, chamber and piano music, as well as electronic and live-electronic compositions. From 1990 to 1999 he was artistic director of the Studio for Electronic Music of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), and is currently Professor of Composition at the Cologne College of Music. Höller attained international fame as a result of numerous performances throughout Europe and the USA and a number of CD releases, and last but not least with his orchestral work Aufbruch (Departure) which was a commission from the German Government of the occasion of the parliament's move to the occasion of the parliament's move to the new capital Berlin. This year, York Höller will receive the prestigious American Grawemeyer Award 2010 for Sphären, the highest music prize ever bestowed on a single composition."
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NEOS 10829CD
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Topic for large orchestra, dedicated to Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1967); performed by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Michael Gielen. Horizont quadrophonic electronic music, dedicated to Ursula und Cuno Theobald (1971/1972); performed by Studio für Elektronische Musik des WDR, Peter Eötvös and Volker Müller, realization. Mythos for 13 instruments, percussion and 4-channel tape, dedicated to Hans Zender (1979/1980, rev. 1995); performed by MusikFabrik/Zsolt Nagy, Studio für Elektronische Musik des WDR, Volker Müller, sound direction. Schwarze Halbinseln for large orchestra, vocal and electronic sounds on 4-channel tape, dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen (1982); performed by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln; WDR Rundfunkchor Köln/Diego Masson, Studio für Elektronische Musik des WDR; Volker Müller, sound direction, Marie-Louise Gilles, speaker (tape).
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