Konrad Boehmer

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Konrad Boehmer (born in Berlin, 1941) is a Dutch composer and writer of German birth.

Boehmer's music reflects his Marxist political agenda, which is made explicit in many of his writings from the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Boehmer 1970). A self-declared member of the Darmstadt School (Boehmer 1987), he studied composition in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig, and philosophy, sociology, and musicology at the University of Cologne, where he received a PhD in 1966. After receiving his doctorate, he settled in Amsterdam, working until 1968 at the Instituut voor Sonologie, Utrecht University. In 1972 he was appointed professor of music history and theory at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague.

His compositions characteristically employ serial organization or montage, sometimes with elements of jazz and rock music (as in his opera Doktor Faustus and the electronic Apocalipsis cum figuris). In other works, such as Canciones del camino and Lied uit de vert Marxist songs serve as basic material.

[edit] Selected Compositions

  • Variation for chamber orchestra (1959-61)
  • Position for electronic sounds, vocal sounds, and orchestra (1960–61)
  • Zeitläufte for eight instruments (1962)
  • Information (1964–65)
  • Aspekt electronic music (1964–66)
  • Canciones del camino for orchestra (1973–74)
  • Schrei dieser Erde for percussion and tape, (1979)
  • Doktor Faustus opera (1980-83)
  • Apocalipsis cum figuris, electronic music (1984)
  • Woutertje Pieterse for nine vocalists and orchestra (1985-1987)
  • Il combattimento for violin, cello, and orchestra (1989-90)
  • Et in Arcadia ego for string quartet (1992)
  • Kronos protos for 14 instruments (1995)
  • Orpheus Unplugged (1999-2000) piano and tape
  • Ouroboros for piano (2002)
  • Doktor Fausti Höllenfahrt for orchestra (2006)

[edit] References

  • Website: http://www.kboehmer.nl/
  • Boehmer, Konrad. 1967. Zur Theorie der offenen Form in der neuen Musik. Darmstadt: Edition Tonos. (Second edition 1988.)
  • Boehmer, Konrad. 1970. Zwischen Reihe und Pop: Musik und Klassengesellschaft. Vienna: [Publisher]
  • Boehmer, Konrad. 1987. “The Sanctification of Misapprehension into a Doctrine: Darmstadt Epigones and Xenophobes”. English translation by Sonia Prescod Jokel. Key Notes 24:43–47