Olga Neuwirth facts for kids

Olga Neuwirth was born on August 4, 1968, in Austria. She is a talented Austrian composer, visual artist, and writer. She is especially known for her operas and music theater shows. Many of her works explore important social and political topics.

Olga Neuwirth likes to work in many different art forms. She often teams up with writer Elfriede Jelinek. She also uses live electronics and video in her music. For example, her opera Lost Highway was based on a surreal film by David Lynch. She has also created music for both old and new movies. The composer Luigi Nono has been a big inspiration for her music and her ideas about the world.

About Olga Neuwirth

Her Early Life

Olga Neuwirth was born in Graz, Austria. Her mother is Griseldis Neuwirth, and her father is the pianist Harald Neuwirth. She is also the niece of Gösta Neuwirth and the sister of sculptor Flora Neuwirth.

When Olga was seven, she started learning to play the trumpet. However, she had an accident that hurt her jaw. Because of this, she had to stop her plans to study the trumpet.

Her Studies and Learning

As a high school student, Olga Neuwirth took part in special music workshops. She learned from famous composers like Hans Werner Henze and Gerd Kühr. When she was 16, she met the writer Elfriede Jelinek. Elfriede later won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Since then, the two artists have worked together on many exciting projects.

At 17, Olga wrote her first commissioned piece of music. It was called Die gelbe Kuh tanzt Ragtime (The Yellow Cow Dances Ragtime). This work was played at the opening of the steirischer herbst festival in 1985.

In 1985 and 1986, she studied music and art at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She also studied painting and film at the San Francisco Art College. Later, she continued her studies in Vienna, Austria. She focused on composition and electroacoustics. Her master's thesis was about the music in the film L'Amour à mort.

In 1993 and 1994, she studied with Tristan Murail and worked at IRCAM. During this time, she created pieces like "...?risonanze!..." for viola d'amore. She also found great inspiration from Adriana Hölszky and Luigi Nono. She said Nono, who also had strong political views, was a big influence on her life.

Her Adult Life and Work

Since 2021, Olga Neuwirth has been a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She is also a member of several important art academies. These include the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts (Berlin). She is also part of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Olga Neuwirth often thinks about the daily lives of composers, especially women. She notes that women composers are sometimes overlooked in the art world. She has written many texts sharing her thoughts on this topic. She also speaks out on wider political issues. She encourages people to be aware of social and political changes. For example, she gave a speech in Vienna in 2000, saying, "I will not be yodeled out of existence."

Olga Neuwirth's Music

Olga Neuwirth has created several full-length music theater works. These include the video opera Lost Highway (2003), based on David Lynch's film. She also created Bählamms Fest (1993/1997), inspired by Leonora Carrington's work. Other pieces are The Outcast, which refers to Herman Melville, and American Lulu. This last one is her own version of Alban Berg's opera Lulu. She worked with Elfriede Jelinek on the opera "Bählamms Fest."

Her opera based on David Lynch's film Lost Highway uses both live and pre-recorded sounds and videos. It also includes other electronic elements. The opera first premiered in Graz in 2003. The Klangforum Wien performed it, and the electronics were done at the Institut für Elektronische Musik (IEM).

The American premiere of Lost Highway happened at Oberlin College. It was also performed at Columbia University's Miller Theatre in New York City. A recording of the opera won the Diapason d'Or award. The UK premiere was in London in April 2008.

Olga Neuwirth's opera Orlando is based on a novel by Virginia Woolf. It is the first full-length opera by a woman to be commissioned by the Vienna State Opera. The opera first premiered on December 8, 2019. It was later chosen as the "world premiere of the year" by international critics.

She also has many chamber music works. These are available on the Kairos music label.

Her Unique Style

Olga Neuwirth's music style is known for using many different techniques. She mixes various sounds and often questions artistic and social rules. She calls her approach "art in-between." Stefan Drees, a writer, said that a feeling of "the catastrophic" and exploring "unfamiliar regions" is a key part of her music.

Openness in Music

Her works, especially since the late 1980s, try to go beyond the usual categories of contemporary classical music. She gets ideas from many places. These include art, architecture, literature, and music. She also draws inspiration from history, psychology, science, and everyday life. Her goal is to create unique and rich works.

For example, in Le Encantadas o le avventure nel mare delle meraviglie (2014), she created a "fictional adventure novel" using many sound effects. This piece was inspired by Herman Melville's story The Encantadas and the sounds of Luigi Nono. The piece started with a recording of sounds from a church in Venice.

In the 1990s, Olga Neuwirth began mixing different art forms. She combined theater, opera, radio plays, performance art, and video. She is interested in many ways to express herself. This is clear in titles like The Outcast, which is a "musicstallation-theater with video."

New Ways of Presenting Music

Olga Neuwirth often aims to change how concerts are usually presented. She wants to create a "fluid form" for her shows. For instance, at the 1998 Salzburg Festival, during breaks, sounds from wind-up toy instruments were played through speakers. These sounds were mixed with live video projections. This created a very immersive experience for the audience. Also, writer Jelinek wrote "prompt texts" to guide the audience's behavior.

Neuwirth's works have also moved from concert halls into public spaces. One example is Talking Houses (1996). This was a sound installation for shops in Deutschlandsberg, Austria. Another was ...le temps désechanté ... ou dialogue aux enfers (2005) in Paris. For this work, a special camera tracked people moving through the square. As more people passed by, the music changed. However, the police in Paris eventually asked for the sound installation to be turned off.

Working with Others

Olga Neuwirth often works with artists from other fields. She has collaborated with architect Peter Zumthor and the New York architects of Asymptote Architecture. She also worked with computer music artist Markus Noisternig. With video artist Tal Rosner, she created Disenchanted Island in Paris (2016).

She is very interested in how music and visual art connect. She has also written texts and film scripts. She has made short films and organized performances and photo series. In 2007, she took part in the documenta 12 art exhibition. There, she created a sound and film installation. Recently, she worked with artist Dominique Gonzales-Foerster on the multimedia installation ...ce qui arrive.…

Music for Films

Olga Neuwirth has also composed music for several films. She wrote scores for silent films like Symphonie diagonale (1924), Maudite soit la Guerre (1914), and City Without Jews (1924). She also created soundtracks for films by Kurt Mayer and Josef Dabernig.

The composer wrote music for the feature film Das Vaterspiel (2009) by director Michael Glawogger. This film was shown at the Berlinale film festival. She also composed for Ich seh, Ich seh (2014) by directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. This film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.

Selected Works

Most of Olga Neuwirth's works are published by Ricordi and Boosey & Hawkes.

Stage Works

• Körperliche Veränderungen and Der Wald (1989/1990), two operas with Elfriede Jelinek
• Bählamms Fest (1997/98), music theater based on the work of Leonora Carrington, with Elfriede Jelinek
• Lost Highway (2002–2003), opera based on David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway
• American Lulu (2006–2011), her own version of Berg's Lulu
• The Outcast – Homage to Herman Melville (2009–2011), a "musicstallation theater" with video
• Kloing! and A songplay in 9 fits, Hommage à Klaus Nomi (2011), a music-theater evening
• Orlando (2019), opera based on Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography, commissioned by Wiener Staatsoper

Concertos (for Soloist and Orchestra)

• Sans soleil (1994) for two ondes martenot, orchestra, and live-electronics
• Photophorus (1997) for two E-Guitars and orchestra
• locus...doublure...solus (2001) for piano and orchestra
• Zefiro aleggia...nell´infinito... (2004) for bassoon and orchestra
• … miramondo multiplo … (2006) for trumpet and orchestra
• Remnants of songs...an Amphigory (2009) for viola and orchestra
• Trurliade – Zone Zero (2016) for percussion and orchestra

Orchestra Works

• Clinamen / Nodus (1999)
• anaptyxis (2000)
• Masaot/Clocks without Hands (2013)
• Keyframes for a Hippogriff − Musical Calligrams in memoriam Hester Diamond (2019) for orchestra, countertenor and boys´ choir

Mixed Ensemble Works

• Elfi und Andi (1997) for speaker, e-guitar, double bass, bass clarinet, saxophone and two playback-CD’s. With texts by Elfriede Jelinek
• The Long Rain (1999/2000), a video opera with surround-screens
• Construction in space (2000) for 4 soloists, 4 ensemble groups and live-electronic
• Hommage à Klaus Nomi (2009) Chamber orchestra version
• Ishmaela's White World (2012)
• Eleanor (2014/2015) for a female blues singer, drum-kit-player, ensemble and samples
• Aello – ballet mécanomorphe (2016/2017) for flute, 2 trumpets, strings, synthesizer and typewriter

Chamber Music

• Akroate Hadal (1995) for string quartet
• Ondate II (1998) for two bass clarinets
• Hommage à Klaus Nomi (1998) for countertenor and small ensemble
• voluta / sospeso (1999) for basset horn, clarinet, violin, violoncello, percussion and piano
• ...ad auras... in memoriam H. (1999)
• settori (1999) for string quartet
• Zwei Räthsel von W.A.M. (1999) for coloratura soprano, alto, viola, cello, cymbals, tape, and live electronics
• ... ce qui arrive ... (2003/2004) for 2 groups, samples and live-electronic
• In Nacht und Eis (2006) for bassoon, cello with ringmodulator
• Kloing! (2007) for computer-aided CEUS-piano and interactive live video
• Hommage à Klaus Nomi (2009) for chamber orchestra
• in the realms of the unreal (2009) for string quartet
• Quasare / Pulsare II (2017) for violin, cello and piano
• CoronAtion Cycle (2020) CoronAtion IV/Version I, a 9-hours-long live sound installation

Solo Works

• Marsyas (2003–2004, revised 2006) for piano
• Trurl-Tichy-Tinkle (2016) for piano

See also

In Spanish: Olga Neuwirth para niños

• List of Austrians in music