PORTAIT OF NICOLAUS A. HUBER
October 4 2024, 7.30pm in the University for Music & the Performing Arts Frankfurt
Nicolaus A. Huber *1939 La force du vertige (1985)
6 Bagatelles (1981)
Ensemble Modern
Michael Wendeberg: conductor
Christian Hommel (guest) moderated by Martina Seeber
The Ensemble Modern starts this season's series of Happy New Ears workshop concerts off by celebrating the composer Nicolaus A. Huber's 85th birthday. Huber studied piano and teaching music, then composition with Günter Bialas before working with Josef Anton Riedl from the mid-60's at places including the electronic studio in Munich. Lessons from Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono and a scholarship to the Cité internationale des arts Paris rounded his studies off. He taught composition at the Folkwang University in Essen from 1974 until he was made an Emeritus in 2014. Between 1975 and 1980 he, Peter Maiwald and a theatre group toured the republic performing political revues. He was professor at the 1988 holiday courses in Darmstädt and was awarded a prize by Berlin. He started developing conceptual »rhythmical compositions« in 1976: pieces in which an underlying rhythm is set, before being changed in many ways by distortion, enlargement and splitting. Smaller forms are still highly charged, such as his Bagatelles (1981) which are in no way trivial. He once said about this composition La force du vertige (The Power of Vertigo) : »Vertigo is a curious confrontation with oneself and one's own capacities«. André Glucksmann thought it was dizziness as fear of one's other self, which you could turn into at any moment. Nicolaus A. Huber is a member of the Academies of Arts in Berlin and Leipzig and an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts since 2019. World premieres of his works have taken place at many festivals at home and abroad.
