A visionary view

Hardly any other contemporary composer has developed such an unmistakable personal style as Beat Furrer. In his 70th year is he reaping the fruits of his artistic consistency.

As the creator of an unmistakable musical language, Furrer heightens the visionary eye and composes works of timeless validity. But his output is always a step into the unknown, like a constant searching. As a composer, conductor, thinker and teacher, he is one of the most influential artists of our time. In 1975 he founded the Klangforum Wien and developed this ensemble as its long-standing artistic director and conductor. Furrer was full professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz From 1991 to 2023. At the end of the 1990s, together with Ernst Kovacic, he founded “impuls” as an international ensemble and composer academy for contemporary music in Graz. In 2004 he received the Music Prize of the City of Vienna, and since 2005 he has been a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. 2006 saw him awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for his sound theatre piece “FAMA”. In 2014 he received the Great Austrian State Prize, and in 2018 was awarded the Music Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation for his life’s work. His best-known music theatre works include “Begehren” and “FAMA”, “Wüstenbuch” (2010) and the two operas “la bianca notte/die helle nacht” (2015) and “Violetter Schnee” (2019).

The whole of 2024 has already been packed with retrospectives and world premieres. A highlight was the premiere of the orchestral work “Lichtung” which took place on 31 August at the Lucerne Festival under the baton of the composer.

A birthday concert in Furrer’s honour will take place in Graz on 6 December 2024. In addition to works by Monteverdi and Donatoni, the ensembles “Cantando Admont” and “Grazer Schallfeld” will perform Furrer’s “Intorno al bianco” for clarinet quintet and “Akusmata” for eight voices and eight instruments in a programme full of cross-references.

Major events are also on the agenda for 2025, above all the world premiere of the opera “Das große Feuer” on 30 March 2025 at the Zurich Opera House, directed by Tatjana Gürbaca. Thomas Stangl has adapted the novel “Eisejuaz” by Argentinian writer Sara Gallardo for the stage.

With the anniversary box set “Furrer 70”, Klangforum Wien has compiled a legacy in the composer’s lifetime. Furrer has selected 18 key works and made new recordings with Klangforum Wien, conducting them himself. The exclusive media box set contains six CDs, three videos and two books. It will be released on 19 November 2024 and will be presented at the “Wien Modern” festival following the concert performance of Furrer’s “Begehren”. / (Photo: EvS, Manu Theobald)