Heiner Goebbels

Heiner Goebbels was born on August 17, 1952 in Neustadt/Weinstrasse. He studied sociology and music. While doing several record productions and many concerts with the Sogenanntes Linksradikales Blasorchester (76-81), the Goebbels/Harth-Duo (76-88) and the art-rock-trio Cassiber (82-92), he also wrote theatre music (for Hans Neuenfels, Claus Peymann, Matthias Langhoff, Ruth Berghaus and others), film music (for Helke Sander, Dubini, and others) and ballet music (for the Ballet Frankfurt).

In the middle of the 80s he began composing and directing his own audio plays, most of them based on texts by Heiner Mueller Verkommenes Ufer (Waste Shore), Die Befreiung des Prometheus (The liberation of Prometheus), Wolokolamsker Chaussee (Volokolamsk Highway), Schliemanns Radio, Der Horatier /Roman Dogs/Chiens Romains and others.

Since 1988 Heiner Goebbels has composed chamber music for the Ensemble Modern (Red Run, Befreiung, La Jalousie) and the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Herakles 2).

In 1994 he composed Surrogate Cities, a 90 minute composition for big orchestra commissioned by the Alte Oper Frankfurt and performed of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, conducted by Peter Rundel. In 1996, as a commision for Donaueschingen, he composed Industry & Idleness (premiere by Radiokamerorkest Hilversum, conducted by Peter Eotvos). Walden for extended orchestra was created in 1998 for the first tour of the newly founded Ensemble Modern Orchestra (conducted by Peter Eotvos).

Goebbels has had Invitations to nearly all major theatre, new music, jazz and performing arts festivals and tours with all his ensembles, the productions for stage and the portrait concerts of the Ensemble Modern brought him to more than 30 countries in the last 15 years.

Nearly all of his music theatre works have been performed more than 50 times on the major music and theatre festivals in europe as well as in the USA, Japan, Australia and Singapore.

From April 1999 on, Heiner Goebbels worked as a professor at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies which is situated in the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (Germany). He is in charge of several seminars and artistic projects. The institute inhabits a professional rehearsal stage and is well equipped with a brand-new audio and video studio. The institute is also dedicated to scientific research as well as artistic practice (contemporary theatre and performance) and especially to the possibilities of linking both. (For further information please visit its homepage.)

In 2003 Heiner Goebbels premiered his orchestral piece From A Diary as a commission of the Berlin Philharmonic/conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.The Berlin Philharmonic performed ten concerts with the music of Heiner Goebbels: two performances of Surrogate Cities in Lausanne and Berlin and many following concerts of From A Diary in Salzburg, London, New York, San Francisco and others.

Heiner Goebbels has been the President of the Theatre Academy Hessen since 2006.

In 2007 he premiered the performative installation Stifters Dinge - a music theatre producion without performers, musicians or actors. After the first 40 shows at the co-producing institutions in Lausanne, Berlin, Luxembourg and Frankfurt this piece was performed extensively round Europe in 2008.

In 2008 he premiered his latest music theatre production "I went to the house but did not enter" on the Edinburgh International Festival, with the Hilliard Ensemble and Texts by T.S.Eliot, Maurice Blanchot and Samuel Beckett.

Photo: copyright by Jakob Rendtorff