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Happy 75th Birthday, Peter Eötvös!

Dec. 01, 2018

Happy 75th Birthday, Peter Eötvös!

We extend our warmest wishes to Peter Eötvös on the occasion of the composer’s 75th birthday on January 2nd! A visionary in the music world, Eötvös has not only been active as a composer, but is also critically recognized for his work as a conductor and for his advocacy and support for young artists.

As a composer, Eötvös has an extraordinary ability to create colorful and unusual tonal worlds, particularly in his orchestral music. His unique sonic palette is particularly evident in such works as zeroPointsan homage to Pierre Boulez, Jet Streamfor trumpet and orchestra, and Seven, for violin and orchestra. Eötvös's distinctive orchestral textures frequently evoke sounds reminiscent of electronic music achieved through the use of acoustic instruments. Eötvös can also be counted among the most successful operatic composers of our time, with performances of his stage works having taken place at the Festival in Aix-en-Provence, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and in the US in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and Fort Worth.

As a conductor, upon relocating to Cologne, Eötvös performed concerts with the Stockhausen Ensemble and was eventually invited by Pierre Boulez to conduct the opening concert of IRCAM in Paris in 1978. Past appointments include music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, as well as principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Eötvös has held professorships at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe as well as the Musikhochschule in Cologne. His dedication to music education is reflected in his commitment to the International Peter Eötvös Institute for Young Conductors and Composers, as well as the Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation.

In September, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, under the direction of Matthias Pintscher, presented the world premiere of Peter Eötvös's Reading Malevich for orchestra at the Lucerne Festival. Upcoming world premieres include his Secret Kiss, a melodrama for speaker and five instruments which will be performed by the Gageego Ensemble, led by the composer, on January 27 in Germany, and Joyce for clarinet and string quartet, which will be premiered by the Quarteto Quiroga on February 9 in Spain. In celebration of his 75th birthday, Schott will publish a monograph focused on his thirteen operas, which evolved through a series of extensive conversations with the musicologist and composer Pedro Amaral.

Listen to Peter Eötvös's Multiversum (2017) here:


(Peter Eötvös/Multiversum/Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Iveta Apkalna, organ/
László Fassang, Hammond organ/Peter Eötvös, conductor)

To learn more about Peter Eötvös, visit: schott-music.com.


Peter Eötvös
Reading Malevich (2017-18)
for orchestra
3(1,2.pic, 3.pic and afl).3(3.eh and heck).3(3.bcl).tsax.bsax.3(3.cbn)-4.3.3.1-4perc-2hp(amplified).cel(amplified).cimb.amplified.acc(amplified).Hammondorg.egtr(with e-bow, amplified).bgtr(with e-bow, amplified)-str(14.14.10.8.6)
20'

Secret Kiss (2018)
Melodrama for narrator and five instrumentalists
Text by Mari Mezei selected from Alessandro Baricco's novel "Silk"
English translation by Eszter Molnár
Japanese translation by Oriza Hirata
17'

Joyce (2018)
for clarinet and string quartet
from "The Sirens Cycle"
20'

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