Werner Heider

Werner Heider (born 1 January 1930) is a German composer, pianist and conductor.^[1][2]

Life[]

Born in Fürth, Heider studied with in Nuremberg and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich from 1945 to 1951. From 1949, he was an employee of the Bayerischer Rundfunk /  [de]. In his compositions he is interested in both strict construction principles and a dialogue between contemporary music and jazz (Third Stream). He participated in the Colloquium musicale of Carla Henius in Rome; as a pianist he founded, among others, the ensemble Confronto and a trio with Oliver Colbentson (violin) and Hans Deinzer (clarinet).^[3]

As conductor, Heider and others stood at the desk of the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the Bamberg Symphony, the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg and the Nuremberg Symphony, as well as the symphony orchestras of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and the hr-Sinfonieorchester. In 1968 he founded the ars nova ensemble nürnberg in collaboration with , of which he is still the conductor and artistic director.^[4]

Heider has premiered numerous works by colleagues and recorded them for radio and vinyl, including works by Minas Borboudakis, , Karola Obermüller and Martin Smolka.^[5]

His own compositions have been performed by conductors such as Péter Eötvös, Michael Gielen, Bruno Maderna, Jun Märkl and Hans Zender.

Students[]

• Walter Zimmermann (born 1949), composer, author and university lecturer.

References[]

External links[]

• Literature by and about Werner Heider in the German National Library catalogue
• Werner Heider discography at Discogs

• Sonata in Jazz (excerpt), played by the duo Vrieswijk-Toxopeus