Music – Berlin – composer Paul-Heinz Dittrich died at the age of 90 – culture

Berlin (AP) – The composer Paul-Heinz Dittrich is dead. He died on Monday in Zeuthen near Berlin at the age of 90, the Academy of Arts announced on Thursday. With his work he had decisively shaped the modern history of music, it was said. He is considered one of the most formative artistic personalities of the past decades. He set literature by Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, Heiner Müller and especially Paul Celan to music.

Dittrich studied composition from 1958 to 1960 as a master student with Rudolf Wagner-Régeny. Since 1983 he was a member of the Academy of the Arts of the GDR and trained master class students until 1991. Dittrich was considered an important representative of advanced music in the GDR.

He was visiting professor in Freiburg / Breisgau (1979), Los Angeles (1980) and Tel Aviv (1990) as well as at IRCAM Paris (1984). From 1990 to 2002 he was professor of composition at the “Hanns Eisler” University of Music in Berlin. In 1991 he founded the Brandenburg Colloquium for New Music, which he directed until 2000. According to the information, his legacy is already in the archive of the Academy of Arts.

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