Heinz Holliger
Composer (b. 1939)
A celebrated oboe player, Heinz Holliger studied composition with personalities such as Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez. Two awards (Geneva in 1959, Munich in 1961) launched his career as a performer. He became one of the most renowned performers of his instrument, pushing the technical limits with new playing styles, giving rise to numerous works for oboe by composers such as Berio, Carter, Ferneyhough, Ligeti, Lutosławski, and Stockhausen.
Heinz Holliger the composer remained in the shadow of Heinz Holliger the musician for a long time before progressively gaining acclaim in the 1980s. His catalogue of works covers all genres, from the stage to works for soloists, from vocal works to large-scale works for orchestra. He is often inspired by poets possessed by insanity and death like Hölderlin, Beckett, or Walser.
