detlev glanert
composer general management
With his successful works for the stage, Detlev Glanert is one of the most-performed living opera composers in Ger-many today. His operatic, orchestral and chamber music is informed by a highly lyrical musical language and dis-plays an affinity with the Romantic tradition, coloured by a contemporary perspective.
Several world premieres and first performances are scheduled for the season 2023/24. Highlights on the opera stage include the world premiere of “Die Jüdin von Toledo” at the Semperoper Dresden (directed by Robert Carsen, musical director Jonathan Darlington) and a new production of “Die drei Wasserspiele” at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern. In the concert hall, Gustavo Gimeno conducts the world premiere of the cello concerto for Johannes Moser at the Phil-harmonie Luxembourg, with follow-up concerts in Cologne and Toronto. The trumpet concerto will receive its German premiere with Simon Höfele and Markus Stenz in Nuremberg and will also be performed again by the Boston Sympho-ny Orchestra with its principal trumpeter Thomas Rolfs under Andris Nelsons.
Other concert highlights include performances of the violin concerto “To the Immortal Beloved” with Midori in Istan-bul and Hanover, a selection of Glanert’s arrangements of Gustav Mahler’s “Wunderhorn” songs with Matthias Goerne and the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Cristian Macelaru, the British premiere of the “Prager Sinfonie” with Semyon Bychkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at London’s Barbican Hall and the Czech premiere of “Ballàbili”.
In recent seasons Detlev Glanert has enjoyed great success with audiences and the press at the Deutsche Oper Ber-lin with his new opera “Oceane”, directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by GMD Donald Runnicles. Semyon By-chkov was on the podium of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for the world premiere of the “Prager Sinfonie. Lyr-ische Fragmente nach Franz Kafka” with follow-up concerts in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouworkest and Leipzig’s Gewandhausorchester. Glanert’s works have recently been performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berliner and Münchner Philharmoniker, the Royal Concertgebouwrokest, the Czech Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra del Teatro Regio, the Orchestre National de France, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and the WDR Symphony Or-chestra Cologne. The BBC Symphony Orchestra dedicated a “Total Immersion Day” to him with the UK premiere of his “Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch” under Semyon Bychkov.
Detlev Glanert’s instrumental oeuvre includes four symphonies, solo concertos for piano, piano duet, violin, harp, trumpet and tuba, and numerous pieces for orchestra and chamber-music ensembles. Glanert’s 14 music-theatre piec-es have all been staged and performed many times and he has received several prizes for his operas, including the prestigious Rolf Liebermann Opera Prize in 1993 for his first full-length opera, “The Mirror of the Great Emperor,” and the Bavarian Theatre Prize in 2001 for the comic opera “Jest, Satire, Irony and Deeper Meaning,” his most successful stage work to date. For “Oceane” he received the Oper!Award in 2019 and the OPUS Klassik in 2020 as “Composer of the Year”, as well as the International Opera Award in 2020/2021.
Conductors of his music have included Marin Alsop, Stefan Asbury, Martyn Brabbins, Semyon Bychkov, Stéphane Denève, Iván Fischer, Oliver Knussen, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Jun Märkl, Andrew Manze, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Markus Stenz and Christian Thielemann.
Detlev Glanert was born in Hamburg in 1960. He learnt trumpet, tenorhorn, double bass and piano. From 1980 to 1982, he studied composition with Diether de la Motte in Hamburg, then going on to train with Hans Werner Henze in Co-logne from 1985 to 1989. In the summer of 1986, he undertook further studies with Oliver Knussen in Tanglewood. For altogether 10 years, Detlev Glanert lived in Italy, where for five years he headed the “Istituto di Musica” and for three years the “Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte” in Montepulciano as their artistic director. In 1992/1993 he held a grant from the German art institute “Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo” in Rome. In 2003 he was composer-in-residence in Mannheim, and held the same position at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo in 2005. He has lectured and taught composition classes in Aspen, Genoa, Montepulciano, Melbourne, Jakarta and Sapporo, among other places.
Detlev Glanert lives in Berlin.
Season 2023/24
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