Udo Zimmermann

1943–2021, Dresden

"Today, to expand the horizons to include the music of the present means to cross borders and invent new principles of order in a living chaos, such as in Jorge Luis Borges' tale of the garden of intersecting paths. As one walks through it, new paths arise, whereby each is a garden of time in which different futures grow alongside one another, and where one never really knows exactly in which garden one is at any particular moment."

Udo Zimmermann, introduction to his first "musica viva" season program, 1997/98
Awards
1972/73 · Hanns Eisler Awards, Radio DDR
1991 · Critics' Prize for Music, Association of German Critics, Berlin
1993 · Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse of the Federal Republic of Germany
2008 · Officer of the "Ordre des Arts et des Lettres"
Multiple winner of the UNESCO Composers' Tribune, Paris
Memberships
Since 1983 · Akademie der Künste Berlin-Brandenburg (Director of the Music Section)
Since 1983 · Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg
Since 1993 · Saxon Cultural Senate
Freie Akademie der Künste zu Leipzig
Sächsische Akademie der Künste (President, from 2008)
Conducting Positions & Key Roles
Dresden State Opera (1970–1984) Bonn Opera (1985–1990) Leipzig Opera (1990–2001) Deutsche Oper Berlin (2001–2003) Musica Viva, BR (from 1997) Hellerau, Dresden (from 2003)
Biography
1943
Born in Dresden on 6 October
1954–1962
Chorister in the Dresden Kreuzchor
1962–1968
Studies at the "Carl Maria von Weber" Hochschule für Musik in Dresden (composition, conducting, voice)
1968–1970
Master classes at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin
1970–1984
Composer and producer at the Dresden State Opera
1972/73
Wins Radio DDR's Hanns Eisler Awards
1974
Founder and director of the Studio "Neue Musik" (Dresden State Opera / Radio DDR)
1976
Teaching assignment at the Dresden Musikhochschule
since 1978
Professor of composition at the Dresden Musikhochschule
since 1979
Conducting engagements with all major European orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg; guest conductor at the opera houses of Vienna, Hamburg, Munich and Bonn
since 1980
Guest lectureships and master courses in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, England, the USA and elsewhere
since 1982
Professorship for music theater in Dresden
since 1983
Regular member of Berlin's Akademie der Künste and of Hamburg's Freie Akademie der Künste
1985–1990
Director of the "Werkstattbühne für zeitgenössisches Musiktheater" at the Bonn Opera
since 1986
Director of the "Dresdner Zentrum für zeitgenössische Musik"
since 1988
Artistic director of the "musica-viva-ensemble", Dresden
since 1990
President of the board of trustees of the Stiftung Kulturfonds Berlin
1990–2001
General Manager of the Leipzig Opera
1991
Critics' Prize for Music, Association of German Critics, Berlin
1991/95
Composer in Residence at the Salzburg Festival
1993
Awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse of the Federal Republic of Germany; member of the Saxon Cultural Senate
since 1997
Artistic director of the "musica viva" concerts of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation
2001–2003
General Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin
since 2003
Director of the Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Hellerau, Dresden
2008
Officer of the "Ordre des Arts et des Lettres"; President of the Sächsische Akademie der Künste
2021
Passed away after a long illness in Dresden on 22 October 2021